


collection - vol 1

by quincindentaldreams



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:55:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 30,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22364488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quincindentaldreams/pseuds/quincindentaldreams
Summary: "we can start with the touch of a hand, like a movie scene,moving into the weight that you've been wanting to put on me-"
Relationships: Tobin Heath/Christen Press
Comments: 79
Kudos: 495





	1. how it's done

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, everyone! 
> 
> I'm so glad to be back. Here is the first one-shot to add to the new one-shot collection that I am beginning. These one shots could average anywhere from 5k-20k depending on plot and how i'm feeling, but this first one is 15k (trying to let y'all eat good). Some will contain smut, some will contain angst, some will contain fluff, and some will contain all three! 
> 
> About the elephant in the room.... Afterglow!! 
> 
> And here's the thing, Afterglow is going no where! It's safe, and I haven't (nor am I going to, as I said before) abandoned it. I'm right at 6k of the next chapter written, after having wrote and trashed a few versions already. The story is on the cusp of major change that leads into the final climax, and I want to get it right. Sometimes it's hard to get it right when the direction you originally planned for the story no-longer feels adequate anymore. This has created writers block, so to work through said writers block- we have one-shot's! On top of the writing logistics- over the holidays I've dealt with both the flu and the stomach virus raiding my house, I'm in the middle of transferring universities, and I started a new job as both a manager and personal trainer at a gym. New Years resolution gym-going means 10 hour work days for me on the weekends, so I've been pressed for time. 
> 
> This isn't to necessarily explain myself, but more so to issue an apology for the wait, and a reminder of my promise that the story wouldn't be abandoned.
> 
> I hope you all had such a wonderful holiday, I'm still pissed off at the Thorns, and if you guys like it- hit that kudos 
> 
> -M

The beginning of anything was never simple for Tobin.

Life had its way of teaching her lessons through the challenges she faced… and then allowing her to reap whatever benefits later. It’s not that she minded it either. Challenges were fun for her- A way for her to show herself that she was capable, and strong. A way for her to make people proud.

So, Tobin loves a challenge, because Tobin loves _winning._

It was this way when she scored her first goal at 4 years old. In her 4 year old brain, the kids her size were all each individual challenges, a puzzle piece waiting to be solved, all building up from the bobbing and weaving until she was able to put the unfamiliar soccer ball in the back of that kids sized net. Even though the “goalie” of her peewee soccer team was picking his nose on the grass 5 yards away, she’d still overcame a challenge, and Tobin reaped her reward in the form of her parents cheering from the sidelines. That evening, as they drove the lanky four-year-old home, her father would recall the story of looking through the rearview mirror at Tobin, who was still in a daze and staring at the dirty soccer ball balancing on her basketball-short clad thighs. He’d always say that everyone needs something that made them feel like a winner, and that he’d expected at that moment that soccer would be that thing for Tobin.

In youth camps, it had been the same. By high school, Tobin was training with the Olympic Development Program and consistently getting called up to US Soccer Youth Camps. Challenges were presented to her constantly, and she was taught to thank God for both the ability to overcome those challenges, and the fact that she was rewarded afterwards. She’d not had many best friends, always too focused on her sport like the rest of her teammates (the closest thing she’d had to actual friends, despite many of them living far away from her), but life still found funny ways of throwing her curveballs outside of the pitch, and each time- she tried like hell to hit them out of the park.

She’d have a math test and two away games in a week, but Tobin would make it her personal challenge to at least score a B. She knew that the public-school teacher gave her privileges due to her being a “ _special_ kind of athlete” that had to travel and fly as much as she did, as she’d heard her ODP coach tell her principle her 9th grade year. They expected her to go pro right out of high school if she wanted to, which was statistically never heard of for women’s soccer. Still, Tobin wasn’t dumb, nor was she incapable, so she made it her personal vendetta to pass each grade with a B average despite knowing that no matter how many tests she could fail, she’d still end up moving to the next grade. The reward? Her teachers never looked down at her or treated her like she was all brawn and no brain, they never dumbed the curriculum down for her, and despite her public school classmates being jealous that she got to be out of school so often- she was able to know within herself that it wasn’t without effort.

Other times, the challenges were just dumb impositions, especially dumb when it involved her teammates at US camp. Kelley once dared her to see how long she could hang onto the crossbar while their friends took shots at her stomach and abdomen. She’d been bruised in the shape of soccer ball patterns along her abdomen for 4 days, but she’d still been able to hang on for two more than Kelley originally expected- which was 10 shots.

Once, her and Alyssa were hanging out in their hotel rooms after a match in Portugal, and Kelley had peaked her head through the door with her hands behind her back, forcing Tobin to look up from her study book with caution and a bitten lip. She had just showered and gotten relaxed in bed, and was in no mood for shenanigans today after losing the match. 

“Yo, lets go run the beep test over on that pitch across the street.”

Tobin rolled her eyes, not even entertaining the freckled girl.

“Dude, where would we even get a CD player? Or the beep test CD?” Alyssa asked, making (what Tobin thought) a good point.

Kelley smirked, “Do you guys think I’m an amateur?”

Both girls eyes went wide as the Georgia forward pulled her hands behind her back, hands clasped around coach’s CD player.

“Kelley!” Alyssa started, _“You broke into coach’s room?!”_

“Shhh! Shut up, someone will hear you, dude.” She looked out of the doorway, checking to make sure no one heard them.

“C’mon, Lys. You wont even go run with me? Why not? I figured we could burn some steam off from that bullshit game. Tobin?”

The midfielder sighed, dog-earring her textbook page before swinging her long legs off of the bed, hearing Kelley give a quiet cheer from her spot above their twin beds. She took her retainer out of her mouth and clasped it in it’s case, reaching down for her socks that were next to her worn Nike trainers.

Kelley (conspicuously, without fooling anyone) hid the massive CD player under her t-shirt, the hard plastic stretching her shirt so much that it was baggy for the rest of the evening, as the pair made their way down the hotel elevator and to the front doors.

“Bet I can beat your time from last camp.” Kelley challenged, smirking at Tobin as they pushed open the entrance doors.

Tobin smiled, feeling the hot Portugal sun bear down on the top of her head as soon as she stepped outside.

Yeah, Tobin loved a challenge.

They always came and went, from little challenges like PSP and Game Boy video games to juggling a ball across the pitch and back, she craved the feeling of achievement and reward. She’d made a bet with her dad that she’d make the national team and score a goal before she was 21. Challenge accepted; challenge won. Not only did she get called up _and_ score a goal, she was a _gold medalist_ before 21. It was the moment that everyone around her were forced to start paying attention, both family and friends. They’d known that she was good, but _how good_ was finally starting to sink in.

She’d promised herself to (at minimum) get through two years of university before declaring herself ready for the pros. Check mate on that one, too. She’d won at every level thus far besides a World Cup, but don’t get her wrong, that was on the list as well.

Youth championships, nationals, College Cups, Olympic games. You name it, Tobin won it.

It was a high, and she’d spend the rest of her youth and adulthood chasing the high of a soccer field win. Even back yard footy games with her little brother were of no match to just how far Tobin was willing to go in order to succeed.

Challenge first, reward later. That was the motion, and everything she did, she did for God and family. In all honesty, the reward system had been so monotonous that she’d- well, she’d almost grown _accustomed_ to it. On the brain, that can come with some serious ramifications for someone when they’re finally presented with a situation that they couldn’t overcome.

These ramifications had been ignored by her, for the large part, despite how painful it was for her to lay awake at night with her hands clasped over her stomach, eyes fixated on the ceiling and brain running like a car with no brakes.

Tonight was the breaking point of her thought system, the final moment in Tobin’s life where she would be introduced to the first major mental blocking point, the first looming wall that would keep her from progressing, from _winning._

And it hadn’t even meant to happen in the first place.

Sure, she’d dodged the topic of her romantic life.. well, for the majority of her life, through the majority of her early 20’s. Her mother had eventually stopped asking, and for the longest time- Tobin had considered that maybe she just wasn’t attracted to anything unless it involved a green natural grass pitch, the sun, two worn cleats, and a soccer ball.

She’d not craved the feeling of romantic love like her teammates had, part of being such a high performing Olympian from such an early age means that there’s an unspoken understanding between the athlete and the coaches or managers that romantic love was off the table. She’d not attended prom, she’d not attended homecomings of any sort either, she’d not wanted or experienced any of it.

And who cared, anyways? The majority of her teammates had not attended prom either. What she didn’t know, however, is that she was still separated from the rest of them, because she’d had yet to have sex with a boy, something that… well, _somehow,_ the majority of her teammates had experienced already.

The truth was, Tobin was turning 22, and she hadn’t even kissed anyone.

So, tonight, as her senior national teammates gathered in Megan Rapinoe’s room to play “never have I ever”, the topic of sex with boys had rendered Tobin bashful, embarrassed, feeling like there was one thing that everyone had achieved without her, feeling like somehow- some way- she’d managed to lose.

And what’s so bad about the entire thing, what kept her staring at the wall as she laid in her twin hotel bed, tears welling up in her eyes, was the consideration that had her hitting her first wall, the first time in life that she’d ever felt true anxiety over failure-

Tobin didn’t _want_ to have sex with a boy.

Tobin didn’t even want to kiss a boy.

“Mom?” Tobin whispered into the phone. It was 11pm on the West Coast in Carson, 2am in Florida, but she knew within her heart that her beloved and recently divorced mother would answer her phone call no-matter where she was in the world, no-matter the time. Tobin sniffed, tears dripping off of her face, as she double checked through the balcony doors that her roommate was still asleep.

“ _Tobin_?” Her mother sounded raspy, groggy from sleep, “ _Are you okay?”_

The midfielder tried her hardest to speak, but it was beyond difficult forming words around the knot in her throat. She swallowed a few times, trying not to sob and pulling herself together, but all she could manage out was a pitiful, broken sounding- “No, ‘m not okay.”

“ _What’s wrong, honey? Did something happen?”_

Tobin looked up at the moon, feeling that extremely rare feeling of homesickness creep its way into her bones. It wasn’t often that Tobin felt like this, but when she did, the only place she wanted to be was curled up against her mother, head on her mother’s chest, feeling her mother rub her soft hands across her shoulders, soothing her to sleep.

“Do you think something is wrong with me?” She quietly said. Her mother asked her to clarify.

“Everyone else… well we were talking tonight in Pinoe and Abby’s room and um, they’ve all- I don’t know, they’ve _done stuff.”_

Her mother was quiet on the end, likely trying to figure out what her daughter could possibly be on about, “ _Done stuff? You mean like… with boys, that kind of stuff? Is that why you’re upset, Tobs?”_

“I’ve never even..” Tobin’s face contorts, and her eyes water again, causing her to bring her shirt to her face. “Like, kissed a boy.”

The line was silent again, before her mother sighed. It wasn’t a sigh of being upset, more like a motherly sigh, one of concern, and possible apprehension. Cindy had been expecting this conversation for a few years now, but she just kept waiting for either Tobin to find someone or Tobin to wonder why she’s never wanted anyone in the first place. It’s never shocked the aging mother, watching her youngest daughter grow up with a ball at her feet unless she was sleeping or eating. Tobin loved two things only, God and soccer, so they were patient, and at this point- Cindy had came to terms with the fact that Tobin may never marry or have children. She had her speculations about why Tobin was so… _abstinent_ , but those were kept between herself and her ex-husband.

“ _Well, why is that a bad thing, Tobs? Do you… you know, want to? Kiss a boy?”_

“God, _no_ -“ Tobin started, stomach churning uncomfortably, then it hit her, the abnormality of being nearly in her mid-twenties and feeling so disconnected from her hormones, and she began to cry harder.

“See?” She blubbered, appealing her case to her mother, her snot being wiped off with the back of her hand, “What’s wrong with me, mom?”

Cindy bit her bottom lip, though Tobin couldn’t see it. “ _Tobs, honey… There’s nothing wrong with you. Don’t compare your life to everyone else’s life, look at all you’ve achieved, you know? Don’t you think a boyfriend would have gotten in the way of that?”_

It was meant to be a joke, but Cindy could tell it fell flat. Tobin only cried harder.

“ _Nothing is wrong with you, sweetie. It will happen when it happens.”_

Tobin nods, though her mother can’t see her.

“ _Tobin? Have you ever thought that maybe… well-”_ Her mother starts, then pauses, closing her eyes.

“Uh huh?” She asks back into the receiver.

Cindy chews on the side of her lip, listening to her daughter sniff through the phone from 2 thousand miles away. On Cindy’s bedside table, illuminated by the bedside lamp that was turned on a minute ago, rests a photograph of her and her four children, taken on a rare holiday when Tobin was 13. Despite her two oldest daughters wearing white sun dresses as they pose for a picture along the beach pier, her youngest daughter paints a much different, though equally perfect picture. Tobin’s long limbs are perched on the top of the pier, squeezed between her sisters, donning Nike flip flops, staple basketball shorts, and a black ODP soccer hoodie that’s a size too big. Her smile is wide, braces gleaming in the sun, and she looks so happy- so innocent- so childlike, thing’s that Cindy realizes are still parts of Tobin’s personality.

No matter what the mother already knew, it wasn’t up to her to figure out her daughter’s life for her or cause her daughter more pain by bringing up things that Tobin had yet to discover. Tobin was headstrong, determined, and sure of herself, Cindy was sure that she could figure it out by herself. It might not be today, it might not be next year, but eventually she would understand. And who knows? She may as well be wrong, and Tobin might just be a late bloomer. Either way, all was fine in her eyes, and she loved her daughter unconditionally for who she was, not what she was.

The line is silent for a second, long enough for Tobin to almost ask her mom what she was going to say again, but Cindy speaks up.

_“Nothing, honey. I just want you to know that it’s okay that you haven’t done stuff yet. There’s no need to rush that, let it happen when it happens and allow it to be special, okay? You’ve got a lot to focus on, someone will come along one day and you’ll focus on them, but for now- just enjoy the life you have and the gift God gave you. I love you.”_

Tobin closes her swollen eyes, feeling her mother’s words touch her heart exactly how she needed them to.

That night, as she drifts to sleep, she’s able to enjoy about three full minutes of peace before her eyes open wide to the ceiling again. Her mother’s words had seemed odd to her, in the way that she found it strange how her mother was avoiding the conversation, how she was beating around the bush, not specifying that Tobin would find and be with a man. Tobin realizes that her mother believes she’s gay. It strikes her at first, the quick mentality of- _“No way, that’s not possible. Don’t I like boys?”_ Until she really considers it, really considers that what made her so upset is the fact that she feels like she’s excluded from the group because the hasn’t had sex, not the fact that she hasn’t had sex or kissed anyone to begin with. Tobin tries to remember a time where she felt anything resembling romantic or connection-like feeling for a man, even into childhood, and she’s unable to locate the feeling or memory.

She registers all of it, remembering that feeling ostracized isn’t a good feeling, remembering that the thought of herself with a hairy man just feels… well, unnatural. Then, her brain flips to, “Do I like _girls_?”

Over the course of four sleepless days that are more stressful than she’s ever had as she moves from camp in Carson to the Manhattan Beach “Tobin-KO-Abby-HAO frat house”, Tobin begins to _also_ consider that thought.

All in all, it makes sense to her. She spends the majority of their two weeks at the beach house thinking about it while she surfs. She prays about it, but not for the wrong reasons- just asking God to give her guidance, knowing that God made her and loves her no matter what. She’d grown up in a fairly progressive household, even in a fairly progressive church, and the issue of her sexuality was more of a breath of fresh air instead of a damning life sentence. If anything, it was like a missing puzzle piece _._ The needing to be around her best friends constantly, the aversion to male attention or sexualizing, the aversion to romantic relationships to begin with unless they involved herself and another girl. If anything, the challenge was only the discovery, and the reward was understanding more of herself, Tobin felt the relief flood over her as she sat atop her surfboard, watching the evening sun cast an orange glow across the water.

Kelley was to her right, balancing in a seated position on her own surfboard. The sun was tanning them, making the sand stick to their salt-water wet skin that stretched over their preseason muscles.

“Hey Kell?” Tobin quietly says, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as her legs lazily move back and forth in the ocean.

“Hmm?”

Tobin looks at her best friend from beneath her shades, noticing the way Kelley is getting sunburned over her shoulders and forehead.

“I think I don’t like boys.”

Kelley scoffs, “Who does? Boys are gross.”

“No,” Tobin smiles, then takes the leap, “No, I think I really don’t like boys. Like-“

The forward-turned-defender gasps, “Dude you mean you think you like girls? Like, you _like like_ girls?”

The challenge, then the reward. She smiles, nods once, then softly gives a- “Yeah.”

Kelley smiles, saying nothing and not needing to, knowing that Tobin knows that she’ll be her friend regardless. It wouldn’t be the first gay girl on their team. Actually, in fact-

“Hey Tobs? I think I like girls too. Like, I think that I _like like_ them, too.”

Tobin throws her head back laughing. _Of course,_ Kelley was also gay. Tobin remembers now that Kelley had also been uncharacteristically quiet in the hotel room that night a couple weeks ago. The weight lifts off of their chests and sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It feels good to tell someone.

“Do you want to go get a taco?” Tobin asks her, before realizing what she just asked after the conversation they just had. She takes one glance at Kelley, who’s got both her bottom and top lip pulled between her teeth, looking as if it’s taking the will power of God to keep herself from laughing. They stare at each other for a second, trying to see who’s going to break first, before doubling over their boards in loud, joyous laughter.

Tobin Heath loves challenges. She loves it when life throws her curveballs. At first, she’d imagined that coming out was going to be the hardest challenge she’d faced, though surprisingly it was easy enough. If anything, coming out to herself was easier than coming out to others, and even still- not a soul in her life even batted an eye when she told them. Her mother, in actuality, looked relieved. Her dad said that he knew, he was just waiting on her to catch up. All of it she’d expected to be a challenge, like a hill she would have to climb up in order to win, comparable to a difficult soccer game, or healing from an injury.

Then, Tobin met Christen.

Life didn’t just throw her a curveball, not this time. Life changed as she knew it, and change was a challenge that Tobin was still mastering ever since signing on to play at PSG.

She’d had her breath knocked out of her before. She was a professional athlete, something like that was common. A boot to the chest, a ball to the ribcage, a stupid challenge from Kelley O’Hara in 2007. All of it sucked, but she’d get her breath back, staying bent over on the pitch until her diaphragm settled, then it would go back to normal. All of it was born out of contact. Competition. Aggressive play in order to win a game.

She’d had her breath knocked out of her because of a human, but she’d never had the breath knocked out of her _because_ of a human. Therefore, it was a predicament, to say the least, when she’d walked into team dinner at 23 years old, back at another national team camp- though this time in cold and windy Colorado.

She was already in an off mood. Upset that the dining hall where they had team dinner and nighttime meetings was detached from the hotel they were staying at. She had to walk down the outdoor hallway in the 20-degree temperature in order to get into the building. Her feet were only in her Nike slides and sockless, meaning they were frozen solid when she finally stepped inside.

Then, to top it all off, the staff had to make more coffee because they were unprepared for the team drinking so much of it.

And Tobin, in a rare moment of entitled frustration, had the thought that someone should have called the hotel to let them know ahead of time that all of the women were fierce coffee enthusiasts. She shook her head as soon as she thought of it, reminding herself that life didn’t revolve around her.

The chair she plopped into was cold against her back, even through the hoodie she had on, even despite the fact that her hood had been pulled over her snapback. She lazily lounged in the chair, refusing to sit up straight, and kept her eyes peeled to the food bar while she waited for the coffee pot to fill up.

Tobin missed Shirley, thinking that if anyone could cheer her up- it would be one of Shirley’s really bad jokes. Oh yeah, she had a girlfriend now, and was no longer apart of the “no-sex” club.

That one was all reward, no challenge.

She had met Christen Press before, but they hadn’t been within 10 feet of one another since Pali Blues, even staying fairly far away from one another at the College Cup final. Christen had even been called up to a few national team camps, but they’d not really had any time to connect with one another. Tobin was mostly oblivious to things, and new people were called into camp often. In all honesty, Tobin probably would only be able to faintly recall the forward if you had asked her, likely responding with something like, _“Uh, the Stanford chick right?” or something like, “Isn’t that who beat Alex for the Hermann Trophy that one year and made Alex mad?”_

Tobin had really only known Kelley from that specific Stanford team, but Kelley was like her when they were together, they only really talked about soccer, so she’d have no way of knowing much about Press.

And maybe that was her first mistake, because life was no longer challenging her.

Now, life was _taunting_ her.

“Hey, Tobs. You know Chris, right?”

Thinking back on it, had she just read the fucking US Soccer email that announced the lineup for this camp, she might have had time to prepare herself. However, like always, she’d cleared the notification and marked the email as ‘read’ in her iPhone without even giving it a second glance, expecting little changes from the roster.

With an irritated glance, Tobin peaked up from beneath the bill of her snapback, feeling the air being sucked out of her lungs in an instant as her eyes met the familiar stranger’s. Christen had changed into a woman, a _definite_ woman, entirely stunning Tobin into a startled silence. She couldn’t remember the Californian looking so ethereal, so beautiful, but here she was- and now the only small victory Tobin could manage was remembering how to speak again.

She realizes that it came off as rude, staring at a woman who’s offering their hand for you to shake while you’re lazily slumped with your legs crossed. She tried to shake out of it, noticing Kelley mouthing _“Dude?”_ to her from behind Christen’s shoulders, eyebrows arched in concern at why her best friend was just sitting there. Even Christen looked perplexed.

“Sorry, um-“ Tobin wipes her palms on her pants and leans up to stand, taking Christen’s hand into her clammy grasp. “Christen, right?”

The raven-haired girl smiles, still very much caught off guard at Tobin’s strange behavior. “That’s me.” She says brightly, and the sound of her voice makes Tobin’s ears burn and she drops the newcomer’s hand like she’d been burned.

“I’m Tobin, you played with Kelley at Stanford?”

She was only trying to make small talk, but Kelley put her head into her hands and shook her head behind Christen’s shoulder anyway. The fact that Tobin knew she was being awkward only heightened Tobin’s anxiety about being awkward, which in turn heightened Tobin’s awkwardness.

Christen smirks, not too proud to admit that the midfielder not recognizing her after they’d played on a team together and against each other was driving Christen a little irritated at this point.

“Yep.” She pops the “p” at the end of the word and nods her head. Looking back at Kelley like the situation was hopeless. She had remembered Tobin through all of these years, watched Tobin celebrate a win after beating her team in one of Christen’s hardest losses to date, watched Tobin tear up the pitch as she dreamed of getting her call up. They’d even played on a travel club team together, despite belonging to separate friend groups and living on opposite ends of the country. She’d managed to follow most of the careers of those women her age who were playing at the senior level, only because Christen always knew she’d be here with them one day.

As much as Tobin loved a challenge, Christen always, _always,_ managed to get her way.

“’M sorry,” Tobin mumbles to the floor with her hands in her pockets, head shaking back and forth as she tries to regain confidence, “I had a long flight from Paris today and they ran out of coffee so I’m not even fully awake right now. I do know who you are, and I know we played at Pali together, ‘m sorry for being so weird.”

The genuine nervousness… well, it melts the heart of the Cali girl, who had almost expected Tobin at this point to be a bit of an adult jackass. And when Tobin flashed her million-dollar smile in quiet laughter at the end of her apology, looking through long dark eyelashes so bashfully and full of hesitation, Christen can’t help but to feel like she’d lost her breath too.

“It’s okay.” She quietly says, turning in the direction of the now-full coffee maker, “Coffee does sound good, though. Doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Tobin cracks a half smile, “I almost cried when I saw that it was empty, I’ve been in an airplane for like.. 70 hours. Welcome to camp, by the way, we’re all happy to have you here.”

Christen’s face flushes, feeling nervous and sweaty in front of the midfielder for some odd reason, noticing that the midfielder looked equally as flushed. They stare at each other for a second too long, in somewhat of a haze, before Christen shakes herself out of it and feels her cheeks grow hot.

“Thank you, um… Well let me get us some coffee then.”

Tobin lets out a breath as the striker recedes back to the table, watching her leave and feeling entirely displaced at the type of energy she’d just felt between them.

Kelley’s just staring at her with amused concern, “Dude, are you like… are you having a seizure? Why are you two acting so weird?”

Tobin swats at her, telling her to fuck off, but she doesn’t miss the increase in her heart rate as Christen takes a seat beside her at the round table.

Life, from this point, gets only exponentially more challenging.

It takes about five more camps and nearly a full year for them to get partnered together on roommate assignment. They’ve yet to not have an awkward interaction, followed by an awkward parting, each of them making both women want to scream and crawl into a hole.

When they find out that they would be rooming together, hearing their names being called out in the lobby of the hotel, anyone who was paying attention could see them both instantly tense up. Pinoe notices Tobin’s odd reaction, noticing the way that typical chill and relaxed Tobs goes from lounging in the lobby sofa to bouncing her left leg up and down, anxiously creating the sound of her flip flop hitting her heel.

“Do you not like Press? I can change roommates with you if you want.” Pinoe bends down in front of her, bleached hair pushed back from her eyes.

“What?” Tobin asks, “Why do you say that?”

Pinoe looks at her suspiciously, eyes flicking to point out her bouncing leg. “Dude, you went from relaxed to ADHD the second her name was called with yours.”

Tobin feels herself begin to sweat, but she stops the nervous bouncing nonetheless.

“Nah, I’m just tired of waiting in the lobby. Also, sorry but you can’t get rid of Kelley that easily. You’re stuck with her, dude.”

It sounds convincing enough, yet Megan concentrated on her regardless before accepting that Tobin was being truthful. Jokingly, she nudges Tobin’s knee and tsks, “I hate rooming with Kelley.”

“So does everyone else.”

Megan snickers, “I suppose I shall have to endure it.”

Which makes Tobin nervously laugh, though the entire time she’s thinking- _me too._

After three days of rooming together and acting like estranged and nervous siblings, Christen finally snaps.

And Tobin? Well. Tobin is… suffering, to say the least. Christen’s perfume has worked its way into the room air, and it’s hard for Tobin to get ready around her because she gets flinchy at the slightest exposure of Christen’s skin.

She doesn’t want to stare, she averts her eyes, and she won’t even move past Christen in the tiny hallway that separates the beds and the bathroom/closet. It’s like touching or looking at Christen would scald her, and Christen’s growing suspicious. It’s alarming to her that Tobin barely speaks to her during the day, and only manages to make small talk with her at night.

Truth is- Christen makes Tobin nervous.

Truth is- Christen is the most beautiful and intelligent woman Tobin has ever met, and the guilt she feels because of thinking that is eating her alive to the point where she’s getting frustrated. She won’t meet her eyes, but she watches the striker when the striker isn’t looking, watching how meticulous and organized she is, watching how she stretches her arms to the ceiling after rising out of bed in the morning, watching her eyebrows furrow as she reads a complicated passage in whatever book she’s reading.

“Hey, can I talk to you?” Christen catches the midfielder’s arm as she moves past her to get to the bathroom.

Tobin looks up in shock, and she tries to back out of the raven-haired girls touch, but her back meets the hotel wall in the hallway. Each individual hair on both of their arms stand up, and it’s this exact feeling that Tobin has been trying to run away from.

“What’s up?” Tobin asks her, meeting Christen’s eyes for a split second before turning to the ground, she notices that the striker seems sad, and the feeling causes her chest to burn at the thought of anyone making her sad.

Tobin immediately thinks of her girlfriend, feeling the pain of guilt wash over her like a tidal wave. Tobin had never been unfaithful, her faith and commitment were the strongest things she had, and if she didn’t have those- she was afraid that she would have nothing.

“Have I done something to make you mad?”

The question physically causes Tobin to hurt from the worry, and she reaches out a hand before realizing and dropping it. “What? No, of course not. Who told you that?”

She’s fully looking at her now, taking in the way Christen seems so dismantled, watching as Christen shakes her head, thankful in the first place to be allowed to hold eye contact with Tobin for more than a second. The eye contact disarms her, reminding her of how nervous it makes her feel to have the midfielder look at her, as if she’s under a microscope, worried that Tobin can see all of her flaws.

“No one, I just- You don’t like… talk to me, hardly ever.”

The air in the room is stagnant for a second, suffocating, until Tobin shakes her head and clears her throat.

“I’m sorry. I’m just… not much of a talker.” Tobin audibly swallows, knowing the words were bullshit as soon as they came out of her mouth. Christen wasn’t buying it either, and her crosses her arms in front of her, feeling even more hurt that Tobin was lying and side-stepping the conversation. The smell of her perfume makes Tobin’s head spin, and she clenches her jaw in frustration at how _good_ she smells.

_This cannot be happening._

“You don’t have a problem talking to anyone else, though.” Christen says, “Just me.”

Tobin looks up at her guiltily between the few inches separating them, jaw still clenching. She has no idea what to say to excuse herself, and the thought of her upsetting Christen is more upsetting than anything else.

“I’m just not sure what to talk about, I’m sorry.”

Christen bites her lip, feeling herself growing frustrated. Later, she’ll ask Kelley if Tobin’s always so aloof and quiet, which will be the first alert to the defender that Tobin has developed a crush and is having a crisis. Though now, Christen just feels hopeless.

“I really wanted to have like, a friendship with you.” She quietly says.

Tobin jerks her head up, “You did? I mean, you do?” The thought makes Tobin’s anxiety spike, the thought of having Christen close to her like Alex, or Kelley, or Pinoe. She imagines herself cuddling Christen like she sometimes does with any of her close friends while on the couch and watching a movie, the thought making her skin tingle, bringing on the feeling she hates. Perhaps this was the hardest part of Tobin’s recent predicament, the knowledge that Christen couldn’t get close to her because of how Tobin couldn’t get her off her mind.

“People haven’t been exactly the most welcoming to me so far here. I figured you would be, but it’s been like a year, and... Can’t we just… talk? Like normal people?” Christen chews at the side of her bottom lip, looking at Tobin with nervous eyes. “Like, tell me about your family, your parents, things you did growing up, stories about the national team and stuff. Or maybe um, we can talk about boys or.. something? If you want to?”

The sentence brings her down to Earth like a rocket, crashing through the atmosphere at a million miles an hour, burning her alive, destroying what’s left when she hits the Earth.

“Boys?” She mutters, then scoffs quietly, though it only sounds like a sharp exhale from her nose. _Of course._ She thinks. _She’s not even gay. I shouldn’t even be thinking about this, what are you doing Tobin?_

Her stomach aches, making her reach for her phone, getting ready to call over the thousands of miles that separate the US and France. “Chris, actually I just.. I just remembered that I told my mom I would call her. I’m gonna go do that before she gets worried. Sorry-“ 

Christen opens her mouth to say something, causing Tobin’s bottom lip to tremble at the sight of her roommate so hurt, but she’s out the door before another word can be uttered.

That night, as Tobin lays aching in the bed, having came back to the hotel room to find Christen quietly crying into her pillow, she vows in the dark to never hurt the green-eyed girl again, no matter how much of her own feelings she has to sacrifice.

“My parents are divorced.” She quietly says into the dark room, hearing her own voice crack in sleepy gruffness. She listens for Christen to stop sniffling before continuing. “M’ from Jersey, where my dad still lives. Mom moved to Florida, and she has a beautiful home. My parents both love me a lot, they’re really great, you remind me of my mom, actually.”

She looks through the moonlight at Christen’s figure, watching her breathe from the twin bed next to her.

“I have three siblings. Two older sisters and one younger brother, and they made my childhood a lot of fun. Um,” Tobin stalls, not knowing where to keep going, so she just runs with it. “One time when I was 7…”

She talks to the dark for what feels like an hour, feeling safe in knowing that Christen can hear her without seeing her, knowing that it would be hard to look at Christen without wanting to reach out and tuck a piece of her curly dark hair behind her ears, or something equally as reckless. She talks until she’s almost sure that Christen’s asleep.

“Oh yeah,” She nearly whispers into the moonlight, “We uh, can’t talk about boys. At least, I can’t, I don’t know about you. I mean I guess you could if you wanted to, but- I have a girlfriend. I’m into girls so, I guess- Um, well I wouldn’t have a lot to say about boys. So…”

Tobin waits for a second, deciding that maybe it’s time for her to go to sleep and stop trying to make Christen feel better. She closes her eyes for a second, only a second, before hearing Christen quietly speak.

“I like girls, too.”

They fall into a quick friendship after that night, Tobin apologizes profusely to Christen as soon as she wakes up and they walk down to breakfast together, with Kelley and Pinoe noticing the striking difference. It’s day and night, how they went from sitting at opposite ends of the dining hall to walking into the room together, laughing at some lame joke that Tobin probably told. It’s all smiles and happiness at first, and Tobin almost believes for a split second that they could really make a friendship work, she genuinely considers that the challenge of their friendship might not even hurt as much. Well, however much friendship it could be given how unfairly attracted to the girl she was. For the rest of camp, the two are inseparable, and at the next camp, two months before World Cup Qualifiers, Tobin tells Christen about Paris and Shirley, not noticing the way Christen’s jaw clenches more than twice through the whole conversation, and Christen tells Tobin about her fling in Sweden with Vero, and the woman in Mexico City that she met on a trip with her sister, and Nima- Christen’s bisexual best friend whom she dated for nearly 4 whole years throughout high school.

Everyone begins to notice, most just assuming that they’d finally became unlikely friends, which is much to Alex’s jealousy until Kelley nips that in the bud.

“Why are you jealous? They’re not just friends.”

“What are you talking about, Kel?” Alex rolls her eyes at the freckled girl.

Kelley gets serious, shrugging her shoulders from her spot across from Arod and Ali. “I’m telling you dude, they’ve got it bad. I mean, first I thought it was just Tobin. She was totally freaked out by how attractive Chris was when they first met, made a complete dork of herself. But then, I started noticing how Christen watches her. She even brought her coffee up to the room yesterday.”

Alex guffaws. “Are you kidding me, Kelley? She brought her coffee so they’re automatically fucking?”

Kelley is quick to defend her best friend. “No, of course they aren’t fucking. Tobin wouldn’t cheat, I don’t think she’s the type, at least not physically.”

“So she brought her coffee, which means that they’re in love with one another? Is that how lesbianism works?” Alex scoffs, “I brought you coffee yesterday. Should I be worried?”

Arod and Ali both chuckle, which earns them both glares from Kelley.

Kelley shakes her head and Alex’s snide comments, making a mocking face at Alex before backing off. “It’s different, Al. I’m telling you. Tobin makes Chris different, and she dotes on her. Her whole vibe changes, man.”

Here, the challenge begins.

Life goes on, and they grow only closer and closer.

Tobin is at war with herself, and Christen is constantly in limbo of the unspoken agreement of boundaries. Despite both parties internal conflict, they’re like moth’s to a flame with one another.

Accidental hand contact sparks flames between them, and both of them are unable to deny the affect the other has, it’s prominent and displayed in the way their cheeks flush, the way their eyes wander, especially when they catch the other staring.

When that camp is over, they head their separate ways, but not before finally sharing phone numbers.

“So you’ll call, yeah?” Tobin winces, not meaning to sound so damn needy as she stands in the hotel doorway, and the obvious wincing causes Christen to bite her bottom lip- knowing that Tobin was embarrassed and entertained at watching the midfielder struggle. Everything she did was _adorable_ to Christen, everything she did Christen fawned over. Sometimes, it was all Christen could do to just stare at her, watching her do anything from guzzling water from a Gatorade bottle to typing a message on her phone, lip bitten as long and nimble fingers tapped on the screen. Everything Tobin did was slow motion to Christen, and often she wished she could just be a fly on the wall to her.

“Will you answer if I do?” Christen throws her duffle bag over her shoulders, ready to board her taxi that’s waiting for her outside of the hotel, ready to head home to California. Tobin was flying back to Paris for Thanksgiving until the final camp before Christmas.

The question throws Tobin off guard, who at first could not believe that Christen would even consider that she _wouldn’t_ answer _._ Tobin wanted to tell her, _a thousand times,_ but she kept her mouth closed instead, noticing the teasing smile that had spread out across the striker’s face, likely teasing Tobin’s poor use of a cell phone.

Fuck it, she thought, looking up at the woman from beneath heavy eyelids.

“If you call a thousand times, I’ll answer a thousand times.”

And it was the truth. Tobin gave Christen an entirely different ringtone than everyone else in her phone, specifically wanting to make sure that _incase_ the striker called- she wouldn’t miss it for anything.

On Thanksgiving, Christen called to Paris from California.

Tobin had just gotten off of the phone with her mom and sisters, and had stepped back inside of Shirley’s tiny apartment, throwing her phone onto the couch as she stepped over torn wrapping paper with her bare feet, heading towards the open kitchen to meet her girlfriend so that they could put the leftover food up together. They had just finished giving each other their Christmas gifts, knowing that Tobin wouldn’t be in Paris to celebrate when the time came.

Shirley peaked her head up from the sink at how fast Tobin had jolted backwards at the unfamiliar ring once it sounded through the living space, watching her girlfriend’s lanky figure trek back across the threshold after snatching the phone to her ear.

“Hello?” She heard Tobin answer, watching the patio doors close behind her, bringing an uneasy silence to the apartment.

_“Hey, it’s Christen.”_

Tobin chuckled, shivering in the cold Paris winter, below the small balcony sat the city, and the city roared to life around her. Sometimes when she was here, Tobin would close her eyes and listen to the horns honking below, the sounds of people talking and moving about, and she could swear that she was in New York City, or downtown Los Angeles, or Vancouver, or _Portland,_ the city that she had signed a contract with to play in next year. Somewhere closer to home, somewhere closer to America, even if just for a second or two.

“Chris, I text you every day. You don’t think I have your number saved?”

The line went silent, and Tobin was hoping that Christen knew she was joking- hoping that the striker didn’t get embarrassed or offended. “Just kidding.” She goofed.

“ _Ass.”_ Christen let out a breath, closing her eyes at the rough timbre of Tobin’s voice. She missed the girl terribly, missed all of her teammates if she was being honest (the ones nice to her), but she missed Tobin the most. _“Did you have a good Thanksgiving? How many hours ahead of me are you?”_

“Thanksgiving was great, yeah. We just finished unwrapping presents, since I won’t be here for Christmas. And so if you’re on the east coast, I’m six hours ahead of you. If you’re on the west coast, I’m nine hours ahead of you.”

 _Shit._ Christen thought it was late, noticing that it was almost 11pm there.

“ _I’m glad you had a good holiday, then. Just thought I would call to make sure you had a good one.”_

Tobin smiled, not feeling too cold anymore. “See there? I know how to answer a phone.”

The girly chuckle she received through the receiver made her bite her lip, made her rub at the back of her neck despite no one being around to watch her get bashful.

“ _I see that! It’s nice, gotta be honest. If only you knew how to text back faster.”_

The comment was left of field, and Christen had put her head into her hands as soon as she said it, likely feeling the way it made Tobin panic. There were a thousand things swirling through Tobin’s head at the comment. Ways that she could defend herself, reasons she could give the girl as to why she only had been texting back during the last few days maybe once or twice. However, none were the truth, because they both were aware of why it was difficult for Tobin to text as frequently as she probably wanted to.

“I’m sorry.” The midfielder said, hoping that it was good enough.

 _“No- Hey, it’s okay. I didn’t mean to come at you like that.”_ Christen sat cross legged in the California grass outside her parent’s backyard, feeling the sun bake into her shoulders as she plucked blades of grass from the space between her feet and Morena’s fur. “ _You don’t… You don’t have to- like, explain yourself_.”

Tobin started to despite being told not to. She never was too good at listening. “But no Chris, I-“

“ _Hey,”_ Christen started again. “ _We don’t have to_ _do this… every time. I know that you’re busy. You’re home, finally. You know? You should be present there and in the moment.”_

Tobin popped the knuckles on her fingers with agitation, the same agitation she’d felt building up in her system for weeks now, and what had only gotten worse since touching down at the airport.

“It’s not- It’s not home, though.”

There. She said it. Immediately she huffed air, then overcorrected. “I don’t really have a home.”

_My home is in twin bed hotel rooms, with perfectly starched sheets and team dinners, with everything that’s made me comfortable since I was 14 years old. Where name cards dictate where I sit on bus seats and my whole life has a schedule set out for me, where I’m not challenged, where I don’t have to think about the things that make me anxious. And you, you feel like home too._

Christen furrowed her brows at Tobin’s words, concerned at the sadness she heard there. “It doesn’t have to always be a place, you know?” She nearly whispered, making Tobin’s eyes close at what Christen was inferring.

Suddenly, the patio door opened again, “Hey… it’s cold out here and you’re barefoot, Tobs. Are you coming in soon?”

Christen smiled at the unfamiliar feminine voice she heard through she speaker confirm that Tobin was being Tobin, barefoot even in freezing cold weather. However, the smile dropped from her face quickly, realizing who it was that she was hearing.

“I’ll be in in a bit babe, I’m okay.”

“ _Actually, Tobin- I think I’m gonna let you go, okay? Go enjoy your night.”_

Tobin felt the world being ripped from her.

“O-Okay then.” And there were a thousand questions both of them wanted to ask one another, but Shirley was still leaning in the door, and Christen was looking for an out, and Tobin felt her head being torn in half. Tobin wanted to ask things like: _When can I see you again? When are you coming home? Can I text you good night? Can I text you good morning?_

_What are we doing?_

_Do you feel it too?_

_“Happy Thanksgiving, Tobs.”_

_“_ Happy uh, Thanksgiving-“

At New Years, Tobin gets drunk on low calorie beer at her family’s South Carolina beach house, 2 thousand miles from Christen’s Palos Verdes home, her heart is _killing_ her, and her mother is taking notice.

Cindy watches Tobin lift another beer bottle to her mouth, disconnected on the balcony away from the family party going on inside. She watches her daughter lean against the patio and stare out at the beach, thumb twirling around the cross necklace that her ex husband gave her for Christmas.

Tobin had been on the phone with Christen to tell her Happy New Year, and the conversation had nearly put a knife in her side.

_“Are you having fun?” Christen asked her, glad that Tobin had stepped outside so that they could talk on the phone for a few minutes. She’d done the same at her own parent’s house, walking to the edge of the cliffs in her back yard, barefoot along the dewy grass with a wine glass in her left hand._

_“Be better if you were here.” Tobin, influenced by the alcohol, had let it slip from her teeth and tongue before she was even aware that she had said it. It was only after hearing Christen’s sharp inhale that she had realized her mistake._

_“Chris, I-_

_“Don’t take it back.” Christen warned with a breath into the receiver, closing her eyes. “That’s how you feel, don’t take it back. Don’t say you said only it ‘cause you’re drunk.”_

_Tobin’s bottom lip trembled, then Christen sealed the deal._

_“I miss you too.”_

Tobin had to hang up shortly after, feeling like her own hands were wrapped around her throat. They had been texting back and forth, both women noticing that the minute Tobin arrived at De Gaulle, she was responding to texts with lightning speed. The December camp was announced as an identification camp to make sure that all younger talent had a chance at making the qualifier camp call up before the World Cup, so Tobin was allowed to spend some much needed quality time with her family.

Despite this, she’d spent the entire week leading up to Christmas paying attention to her phone. They texted constantly, and even managed to call one another at least once every other day. At first it was enough to kill some of the sting from not being around one another at camp like they’d expected to be. However, the soothe didn’t do it’s job for long. The last two days, Tobin had been holding herself back from booking a New Years red-eye to California, and falling asleep on the phone together did absolutely nothing to kill Tobin’s pain.

To top it off, Shirley was taking notice of Tobin’s lengthy intervals between their own messages. All Tobin could do was blame the time difference and cite that she was exhausted, that she was spending time with family- but her patience for herself was starting to wear thin.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Cindy whispers, pushing Tobin’s hair back from her shoulders as they stare out at the dark waves. It’s a few minutes after midnight now, but the party is still in full swing.

“It happened so fast, mom.” Tobin whispers, shivering at the cool beach air that wafts through the holes in her ripped jeans. She’d forgotten that a South Carolina beach winter was different than a California beach winter.

“Talk to me Tobs. I’ve never seen you like this before, honey.”

She’d seen her youngest girl overcome thousands of obstacles, it was the hallmark of her parenting, watching your child grow up and learn how to be self-supportive, self-sustaining. Sometimes, Cindy thought that Tobin could just about do anything with this type of natural ease that she’d never seen before in her life. The girl seemed to float through life, just enjoying every breath. It was obvious why seeing the girl so distressed had alarmed her. It was even more alarming when Tobin began to talk, because she rarely- if ever- was one to talk about her feelings.

“Do you remember Christen Press?”

Cindy wracks her brain in thought before recalling the face of who Christen was. She nods, studying her daughter’s sullen face quietly. “Did something happen to her… or, with her?”

Tobin rubs her eyelids, nodding with a jutting bottom lip.

“Did you… you know, sleep with her?”

It wasn’t meant to be accusing, but Cindy was appreciative anyways when Tobin shook her head no. She’d not raised her daughter to be like that.

“Are you in love with her, Tobs?”

Tobin’s breath hitches, realizing that the wall she’d been trying to break through was now fortified, never before considering the _love_ factor. Tobin, before this moment, was not sure that she knew what being in love felt like. She knew how love felt, of course she did. She loved so many things. God, her parents, her siblings, her teammates, the feeling of scoring. She loved beating someone at chess. She loved church. She loved being at the beach or skiing down a mountain. She loved a lot of things, and a lot of people. She loved Shirley even, which was making this so hard. But being in love? Tobin had never been sure.

She was sure now, however, that being in love felt like hearing Christen answering the phone when Tobin wanted to talk, or the way Christen laughs at her jokes, making her feel like she was actually funny. The way Christen’s nose wrinkles when she concentrates on painting Tobin’s fingernails before a soccer game. She’s sure that being in love meant Christen knowing how she takes her coffee, or having a water bottle ready for only her on the sideline of the pitch. Tobin was a simple type of person, she loved anything that was simple, anything that kept the controlled chaos of her life from being _too_ chaotic. It was a lot of the reasons why Tobin hated going off of other peoples plans, or she hated when people tried to integrate their plans in with hers. Other people made things complicated, make things difficult when they could have been simple. Made the little challenges Tobin overcame in every day seem ten times more difficult.

Somehow, it wasn’t like that with Christen. In fact, Tobin had honestly preferred when Christen took control of the challenges. If anything, having Christen around meant solving problems faster, making things easier, even emotions that they would talk through. No one else had done that for her, and that meant that Tobin felt lonely and… well, bored without Christen around.

And the guilt she carries for… for _feeling_ this way outside of her relationship?

Well, Tobin equates it to rocks being tied to her ankles when she’s already drowning. She wants the rocks off of her ankles, but she knows she should have never went swimming in the first place, and all of it is fucked up.

By the time she finishes telling her mom what all has happened, she’s crying.

“ _Tobin..”_ Her mom holds her to her chest, pushing back her hair. She lets her daughter cry into her sweater for a minute or two before she pulls the athletes head up. “You know what you have to do, don’t you?”

Tobin, eyes red and swollen, nods at her mother.

“You need to work this situation out before it gets too far and people get really hurt, especially you. Don’t make yourself the bad guy here, okay? You know that’s not you.”

She nods, wiping her face. Without realizing that 2 thousand miles away, Christen was having a very similar conversation with her own mother.

Camp for World Cup Qualifiers hits, and the tension between the two women has reached its peak. Tobin almost half-suspects that not being able to touch Christen is making it all the more difficult to not touch her.

They had magically been put in a room together again, Tobin had gripped the table in the hotel hallway so tightly that her hand had went sore while reading the room assignments. She didn’t miss the way her grip lightened up after seeing where her name was. Her footsteps to the room are methodical, calculated, almost in a way that she feels herself on auto pilot- just waiting to be in contact with the woman, breathing the same air.

She knows that it wouldn’t have even mattered if they were rooming with other teammates. Tobin didn’t give a fuck. It was the simple thought that Christen was _close_ to her again that gave her comfort, knowing that missing her meant a short hallway trip and not a flight around the planet.

Christen is cross-legged on the bed when Tobin opens the door with her room key. She’d been sitting there for two hours, waiting on the midfielder to get there, thumping the page of the opened book in front of her legs each time she read the same sentence over again.

When Tobin walks in, Christen breathes. She can’t even smile. It’s not that kind of relief, not the kind of relief that she feels right now in this moment.

This relief isn’t, _I’m happy to see you._

This relief is, _It hurts to not._

They share a bus seat together after practice, and one day Tobin has to clench her fists so tightly that she cuts half-moons into her palms that’s resting in her hoodie pocket when Christen falls asleep on her shoulder. Anywhere Christen touches, Tobin’s skin tingles, and Tobin knows it’s the same for Christen.

Her jaw clenches wildly, something that Kelley and Alex worriedly take note of from their seats a few rows behind the two girls. Kelley knows that Tobin’s in pain, she knows that it couldn’t have came at a worst time- with qualifiers and the cup right around the corner. She’d grown accustomed to how in sync Christen and Tobin had become, but it still hurt the defender to watch her best friend ache, and most of the time she wants to shake her and tell her to call Shirley and get it over with like anyone else would do. Kelley knows, however, that this isn’t any typical situation, and Tobin is gentler than that, never wanting to cause anyone pain. This breakup is going to hurt Tobin, not as much as Kelley suspects Tobin is hurting now, but still- it’s worth doing in person, especially if she had any respect for the Costa Rican.

“Do you want to talk to me about anything?” Kelley asks her one evening, having just watched Christen lightly rest her hand on Tobin’s shoulder before getting up to get them both a cup of after-meal coffee. She’d not even asked if Tobin wanted anything, just looked at her with the question in her eyes and Tobin had nodded with a soft smile.

“About what, Kel?”

Alex kicks Kelley’s foot under the table, having also taken notice of how… just… well, fucking _undeniable_ they were acting lately. She- however, had decided to not snoop. _Tobin was an adult._ Alex thought. _One capable of making her own decisions._

With Kelley, things were different, but not because she had any motives. If anything, Kelley was baffled that she couldn’t see before how fucking perfect the two of them would be together. One neurotic and the other…. Well, anything but. Still, she didn’t care that they were so obviously _doing this._ Kelley never thought that a relationship with the PSG girl was a smart move for Tobin. She knew from experience, though, that this could _really_ bite you in the ass.

She wanted to protect them, is all.

“How is Shirley? You guys good?” The defender speaks up, twirling her fork around the cold and uneaten chicken breast on her plate.

Tobin looks up from her food, staring intensely beneath her snapback into Kelley’s eyes. It’s a questioning glance. Sort of like, _“Did you ask that because of why I think you asked that?”_

Out of the corner of her eye, Tobin notices Christen rounding the corner back to their table.

“ _Don’t,_ Kel.” She warns, but not because she gives a damn that Kelley has questions, honestly she’s shocked that it has taken this long for either her or Alex to start questioning things. More so, Tobin is selfish, and she’s terrified that other people knowing of the challenge and issues between them could spook Christen, causing her to miss out on something that she’s sure is a catalyst to her life- something that’s ultimately bound to change Tobin forever. It’s that moment before boiling point, when you know that the water is about to bubble, yet knowing that the conditions aren’t right yet, and all there is to do is wait just a little while longer.

Kelley conceded with a worried look, watching Christen touch Tobin on that same part of her shoulder as she sets the foam cup in front of her, steaming with dark liquid as Christen rubs across Tobin’s back.

A few nights later, they’re outside after some particularly rough two-a-days. They’d immediately went into recovery once getting back to the hotel in Michigan, both of them too worn out to even speak.

Tobin held the door open for the sleepy and yawning green-eyed girl when they left the sauna, and Christen asked if Tobin would make a fire for her in the fire pit outside of the hotel. They had about four hours left before curfew and Christen just wanted to continue relaxing after her massage, sauna, and warm shower.

Ashlyn had almost offered to join them, as they all rode the elevator down to the lobby, but something in the way that Christen rested her head on Tobin’s shoulder had her thinking against it, choosing wisely instead to let the two of them be alone, so they may hopefully work out whatever… that is.

She had caught Tobin’s eyes over the top of Christen’s braided head, and it was easy to see that the midfielder was struggling. Her eyes pleaded with Ashlyn, without her saying anything at all, yet Ashlyn understood.

_Don’t judge me. I know what it looks like. You don’t understand._

But she did, though. Ali had been with a boy when they first met, and while Tobin was more-so in Ali’s position, and Ashlyn having been in Christen’s position, she knew how it felt.

She knew how it hurt.

And Tobin can only tense when Christen sighs as the elevator opens and pulls her head upright, allowing Tobin to follow her as they make their way outside after grabbing small coffees from the coffee bar. Their hotel was right on Lake Michigan, which was so huge that the shoreline looked like the beach- no other side of the lake in sight. They walk along the outside patio, and Tobin slips her slides off her feet, before they locate the little outside fire pit and comfortable chairs.

It takes a little elbow grease, but eventually the fire is lit, courtesy of the complementary wood and matches stored at the base of the fire pit. Christen’s green eyes darken and flicker from the flames as she watches Tobin’s hands and arms from her rolled up hoodie sleeve, watching the midfielder use the poker in her left hand to move the logs into position. Her veins, and _God,_ there were many- were traveling up and around muscled forearms like she’d just finished a hard lift session. It always surprised and _impressed_ Christen of how Tobin’s body was made, how her fast metabolism and boyish physique allowed for things like prominent vascularity, and prominent lower abdomen muscles.

She watches the hands work, poking and prodding at the fire while Tobin’s eyes are far-off. She visualizes just how strong those hands could be. How she wouldn’t mind their grip, all strong and harsh along her ass and thighs. How she wouldn’t mind them holding her to the bed. She feels her cheeks flush at how wrong it is, and the thought of that puts a crease between her eyebrows, and her mind places restrictions on her daydreams on one hand while making her just- _soaking_ on the other.

And Tobin looks bothered, too. She can tell that something’s worrying her, and she almost, _almost,_ feels ashamed at the visuals plaguing her own mind when she knows that Tobin’s frustrated.

Part of her even knows why Tobin is frustrated, despite the fact that they’ll never talk about it.

A hotel employee notices them and brings out a complimentary blanket, citing that it was chilly in Michigan at night (thought Tobin still made sure to autograph the back of the woman’s phone case). Christen drapes it over her legs as she sits on the oversized and _much too comfortable_ lounge chair. It’s lost on absolutely no-one that the lounge chair was made for two people. Christen knows it is, and she’s purposefully sitting as far as she can to the side. Just hoping that Tobin will notice her.

“Do you want me to take your shoes off?” Tobin asks her after the fire has settled, but it’s not much of a question, because she’s already dropped to one knee at the foot of the lounge chair, and long elegant fingers are pulling her shoe strings through their loops, and Christen has to lower her eyes at the way Tobin’s thumb caresses the arch of her socked foot once the first shoe has been placed on the concrete next to them.

Once both are off, Tobin lifts her head to make eye contact with Christen, feeling the heat of the fire at her back as she slowly rests her hands around the striker’s ankles, slowly thumbing the skin that stretches over the bones. Green eyes, beautiful lips, and braided hair meet her gaze, and suddenly she just can’t take it anymore- she needs physical contact. _More.._ physical contact, and Christen beats her to it.

“Want to share a blanket?”

So they do, and Christen rests her head on the shoulder of Tobin’s hoodie. And slowly- _so_ slowly- she takes her hand and places it around Tobin’s right forearm, curling her legs up against Tobin’s outstretched ones, and they both gaze into the fire with a muted silence as all of it happens.

Christen closes her eyes as she slips her fingers under Tobin’s hoodie sleeve, pushing the hoodie far enough up so that she can trace those veins, so that she can feel the taut muscle as it stretches and flexes beneath her skin.

Tobin closes her eyes, too- smelling the coconut oil that Christen would run through her hair, feeling the soft pads of Christen’s fingers as they trace over her forearms. Suddenly, Tobin wants to talk about _this._ About what’s going on between them. And it’s a sudden burst of bravery, but she goes for it nonetheless- she-

“Chris?”

It’s so quiet that Christen nearly doesn’t register that she was spoken to until Tobin’s about to speak again, and it’s then that Christen recognizes the tone in Tobin’s voice.

“ _Don’t_ \- don’t say what you’re about to say.” She whispers.

They’re both silent for a second, before the guilt of interrupting Tobin wins and Christen has to explain herself. “Just- _Don’t,_ don’t hurt me yet, I-“

“Hurt you?” Tobin whispers, a bit too loud and a bit too shocked.

Christen’s suddenly looking into her eyes, all green and gray and cloudy and vulnerable, all emotion that’s heightened within the reflection of the fire. And her eyes are so sharp, so extraordinary, so piercing that it silences Tobin, just _nearly-_

“I mean, I can’t _lose_ you. Okay?“

Tobin stalls, nearly panics, utterly confused at how Christen could even dream of such a thing.

“That’s not- I wasn’t- _Chris,_ I’m not going anywhere.”

Christen doesn’t say anything, and Tobin decides that her moment of bravery was miscalculated. She’d wanted to tell Christen her feelings, wanted to tell the younger girl that they needed to do something about this, wanted to ask Christen if she felt the same way. Yet- Christen’s anxious that Tobin would leave her, and the conversation swells Tobin’s chest with something that lights her up warmer than the fire that’s a few yards away, something akin to _hope._ She’s not dumb, she knows that Christen feels the same for her-

Tobin is _scared._

“The last thing I could do is leave you.” She quietly says into the air between them, feeling guilty about it but recognizing it for what it was. The truth.

She closes her eyes, breaking her gaze from Christen’s momentarily, and reaches for the striker’s hand that’s around her forearm. Her palm is slightly clammy, and Christen’s hand is cold, and she looks into the girl’s eyes as her right hand interlocks with Christen’s left.

And Christen stares at their hands, supplying the midfielder with a tight lipped smile and worried eyes, feeling Tobin’s strong hand wrap around her own smaller one in a way that makes her feel safe, sane, and loved- and she knows they’re breaking the rules, knows that she’s being bad, but she can’t help but to slowly shake her head, eyes meeting Tobin’s beneath long lashes- when she says-

“I wouldn’t know what to do if you did.”

And the string begins to unravel.

The string is pulled tight, so tight that- on many occasions, it almost snaps, and Tobin’s challenge has almost become infinitely broken and harder. There’s one moment, and one moment only, that the string begins to snap without breaking all the way through.

Tobin has always been okay at self-control. She doesn’t overeat. She doesn’t overtrain. She doesn’t drink too much or subject herself to situations that she worries she will have trouble saying “no” to.

They decide to watch a movie together, following the unspoken law that the movie will be watched on Christen’s bed, with Tobin outside and on top of the covers. At most, _at most_ , Christen will rest her head on Tobin’s shoulder. Other forms of touching or snuggling was accepted when they were in different areas, like on a bus, or in private around a fire pit, but it was understood between them that it was _never_ in an empty hotel room, on a bed, and under the covers.

The logic was screwed, but it was all that they had.

Usually it works, but tonight- Tobin is freezing cold. A typical warm body, she doesn’t feel frozen from cool air often, but the hotel air conditioner is working like magic, and she’s too cowardly to ask Christen to turn it down because she knows that Christen gets hot too.

On the third shiver, Christen pauses the movie, it’s dark in the room but Tobin can see Christen’s sharp green eyes reflecting from the screen on laptop that’s resting at the foot of the bed.

“Get under the covers, you’re shivering.” Christen whispers, all sweet and soft voices close to Tobin’s ear, making Tobin shiver even more. The blankets lift the smell of Christen’s body wash and perfume into the air, into Tobin’s senses, and she has to cross her legs beneath the covers and clench her jaw to stay cool. Her whole body is lit up in goosebumps.

Christen, on the other hand, is about to break. Her hands clench and unclench in her lap, desperately turned on by the smell of Tobin’s cologne mixed with that typical _Tobin_ smell. She’d read once that pheromones were powerful things, and she knew that humans use them constantly without knowing it. Tobin’s pheromones were burning her alive, and she’d never felt such a stronger connection to something. Sitting in it without talking about it was making it worse.

Tobin turns to look at her, all sharp jawline and broad, muscular shoulders, and Christen has to grip onto Tobin’s forearm to keep herself from doing something that would hurt a woman she’s never met, despite the fact that she’s already felt like a homewrecker.

“This is… killing me, Tobin.” Christen whispers into Tobin’s shoulder, sharply inhaling the smell of laundry detergent and that _damn_ cologne that’s made her undeniably wet.

Tobin’s jaw clenches again within the silence of their room, and Christen feels her forearm muscles contract. Her body goes rigid as she feels Tobin’s face lower, still turned towards hers, and her lips ghost over Christen’s nose before coming into contact with her cheek. Tobin feels her teeth wire shut, eyelids clenched, as she presses the slightest kiss to the skin beneath Christen’s sharp cheekbone. They breathe each other in, and it’s all Christen’s expensive cherry blossom perfume and Tobin’s minty breath from her peppermint chewing gum between them.

When Tobin moves to pull away, too overwhelmed that she feels like she might pass out, she lowers her face, allowing her mouth to dip closer to Christen’s, who presses her lips around Tobin’s bottom lip with slow precision, hands immediately drawing up to cup Tobin’s jaw.

Threads on the string begin to break.

Tobin has never lost a challenge, but she feels this one beginning to slip- and Christen lets out a throaty groan at the feeling of the kiss.

Tobin squeezes her eyelids shut, fighting the urge to turn the bedroom inside out while searching how to make Christen repeat that noise she just made one thousand different ways over. She’s trembling, right hand moving to Christen’s waist and squeezing when the younger girl pulls back and kisses her again, this time giving Tobin her bottom lip.

When Tobin’s tongue seeks out Christen’s, and they touch for the first time, she has to physically yank herself off of Christen’s bed with heaving breaths. She might have not touched her, but they’d kissed and Tobin allowed it, and in her mind and many others- that was more than enough. Tobin would never claim that she didn’t cheat. It’s just, unfortunately in her mind, she’d been cheating since she laid eyes on the striker, ‘cause in her mind- the emotional aspect was ten times worst than anything they could have done physically.

She’s trembling, running her hands through her now-sweaty hair, loudly sighing with exasperation as she stares at the striker with sad, intense eyes.

“We need to talk about this.” Tobin whispers, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth to keep it from trembling so hard that her teeth chatter. Tears well in her eyes and Christen nods, chest heaving, the back of her hand pressed against her mouth as she waits to calm down.

“Why is this happening to us? I didn’t- I can’t even-” Tobin can’t even finish her sentence, frustrated because she knew that they would end up here, and it was the reason she avoided the situation in the first place. There is no-where left to run. She’s in love now.

Christen shrugs her own shoulders, tears flowing over her eyelids and down onto her cheeks. The sight physically hurts the midfielder, who gets even angrier that she’d made Christen cry for a second time, not knowing the many nights that pass with the striker in the exact same state because of Tobin, only with no one around to witness it.

“ _Please don’t-”_ Christen hiccups. “ _Are you going to say that this is too much for you now? Are you going to run?”_

Tobin’s mouth drops open, reading the fear that’s ticking across Christen’s face.

“It is too much for me, but-” She quietly mumbles, pointing at her chest and dejected, hands clenching to keep herself occupied so she doesn’t recklessly end her relationship over text to give into how she feels. It would be so easy for her to give in. She wants Christen beneath her, spreading her legs and dipping between them- wants to fuck the younger woman into the mattress until her legs give out- all curling fingers and wet tongues and _teeth_ , and all the other things she just _can’t_ do.

“ _Christen_.” She looks at the striker through the moonlight, watching the way the girl refuses to meet her eyes, watching the way she looks terrified as she stares at the wall. “I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m away from you. I couldn’t fucking like- _run,_ even if I tried. But there’s someone asleep in a different country right now who has no idea how… how _difficult_ it is for me to keep my hands off of _you_. When I can’t get to Paris to end things the right way. That’s what’s hard.”

Christen turns to look at her, accepting Tobin’s honesty and sincerity.

“I’ve never been this person, but I can’t just… just _not_ be around you.” Tobin finishes her case. Dejectedly and exasperatedly using her hands to talk.

“Then don’t be.” The striker challenges. “I’m not asking you to- to _give me that,_ not yet- I know you’re not ready _, that we’re not ready._ But you don’t have to be away from me.” Christen feels her tears drip off of her chin and into her palm, not able to tell if them finally discussing what was happening between them was a good or a bad thing yet. She sniffs, looking up at Tobin, “This isn’t healthy for us, is it?”

“No.” Tobin whispers, shaking her head back and forth. “Not when I need you as bad as I do.”

Tobin begins to cry, heaving long, heavy sobs into her hands as she stands between their beds in the dark room. Christen shakily reaches for her, guiding her with a warm palm back down onto her bed and pulling the covers over them both, knowing that all Tobin could ask for is Christen to hold her right then. She pushes Tobin’s head onto her chest, and she brings her back down to Earth until the midfielder has cried all that she can.

Tobin waits until after World Cup Qualifiers to fly to Paris. 

The break up? One of the most difficult things she’d ever done. Part of her wanted to do it in public, maybe at a park or a beach or somewhere that she knew Shirley and her could just sit down and talk without having four walls constricting upon them. In the end, however, she ended up deciding against that.

Rarely did Tobin find much a challenge that came with little initial reward, especially when the reward was something that Tobin knew would take time to cultivate, especially when that reward came at a cost like this one.

Tobin remembers the way Shirley looked when she opened the door to find Tobin standing there with no bags. She had brought bags with her to Paris, bags that were currently in the airport hotel room that she rented. And she’d only packed for overnight, knowing that she was flying back to her storage unit in Portland tomorrow (she’d only had a futon in the apartment, so she’d probably end up staying with Lindsey), despite Shirley thinking that she was flying in for a few days. Her stint in Paris was over, her 27th birthday had came and gone, and she couldn’t help but know that it was the time to make her changes. She needed a fresh start before this summer in Canada. She needed a clear conscience if she was going to win this World Cup.

The memories allow her to settle. Shirley had taken one look at her sad and dejected appearance with folded arms, gave a soft and watery smile, before kissing Tobin twice on the cheek and whispering, “ _It’s okay.”_

Mountains were hard to climb. Running sucked. Fishing took forever. All things that rely on a person understanding that the benefits outweigh what is painful in the moment.

Mountain climbed, weight lost, new fish.

Tobin knew that challenges were sometimes presented to you in ways that didn’t seem like challenges. Sometimes, they were lessons disguised as blessings. Sometimes, they were moments that would teach you little life-applicable things. Other times, the challenge seemed like it would never end, when all in all- the challenge itself was created by what was previously looked at as a challenge, yet ended up being a breath of fresh air.

It took just one look at the midfielder standing solemn and bagless in the doorway for Shirley to immediately know what was happening. She was older, and she’d been Tobin’s first girlfriend and experience with a woman, and she’d suspected at the beginning of their relationship that the fun they had together wouldn’t last. It hurt, they always do, but she’d been waiting on it for months now, and while Tobin cried like a baby- Shirley could only smile at how great it was to know her, to love her for who she was.

“It is her, yes?” She asks the lanky midfielder, watching Tobin brush back her hair and wipe snot from her face as they sit on the couch. “You met someone? The girl on the phone?”

For a split second, Tobin panics and contemplates lying, not wanting Shirley to be mad at her, not wanting Shirley to rescind her offer of friendship at the word of another woman. Tobin can’t lie, though, it’s just not in her true nature, and she nods through heavy wolf tears.

“You’re in love.” Shirley quietly says, kissing the knuckles of Tobin’s right hand.

“I love _you_. Please know that. Please don’t think it never meant anything.” Her bottom lip trembles, and Shirley thinks its right for Tobin to fear the things she fears, but the midfielder would find no damage with her today. She was an adult, and this wasn’t her first go around.

“It’s not a competition, _amor_.” She wiggles her finger back and forth, before softly gripping Tobin’s chin into one hand and forcing their eyes to meet.

“ _I want you to be happy.”_

So mountains were hard to climb, and sometimes the finish line hasn’t even been built yet when the race is started, and sometimes- only sometimes, the reward is what creates the challenge in the first place.

The beginning of anything was never simple for Tobin.

Before the World Cup, there’s a final camp. They train and eat lightly, preparing themselves for the test of the greatest challenges at a championship opportunity that soccer provides. Christen and Tobin have been communicating over the phone since the last round of Qualifiers, since Tobin flew to Paris. They were aware of the suspension they were hanging in, though both were too focused on their jobs and the challenges ahead of them to allow themselves to become consumed in one another. The World Cup would flash before their eyes if they blinked, if they lost focus, and they both had roles to play. Tobin specifically had a World Cup to avenge.

Still, it didn’t stop them from spending every night apart on the phone with one another. Christen had made a routine falling asleep with the phone still on their call next to her on the pillow. Tobin would sandwich her phone between the pillow and her cheek, and wake up with the print of an iPhone stretching from her cheek to her jawline. They don’t know why they couldn’t just hang up, and they knew how terrible they would be made fun of if any teammates were to find out. Goodbyes were just hard.

Still, it didn’t stop Tobin from visiting Christen’s room first when she arrived to camp in the evening, the room that she is sharing with Krieger for this camp. Like a drug addict, one little hit was all she needed. It would never be enough, because enough didn’t exist, but it could hold her over until they would sit together for team breakfast tomorrow morning.

Tobin hadn’t even checked the paper to locate where her own room was, she’d been too preoccupied with finding Christen’s name and room number. She’d not even dropped off her bags, having to lug them down the hall and drop them next to her feet as she took a deep breath.

She put her forehead and the knuckles of her left hand on the cool door, closing her eyes and taking another breath, allowing herself to get collected before she’d give a knock.

Christen slips from the doorframe once Tobin got the courage to alert her presence.

“Hey,“ The striker whispered, standing within the little bit of space between Tobin’s lanky body and the door. Christen had the doorknob in the grasp of her hand that was behind her back, and she closed the door behind her lightly, not wanting Ali to hear anything, or _see_ anything.

Closing the door had almost put her within centimeters of Tobin’s body, and the smell of cologne had made her lightheaded, making her blink her eyes slowly as she inhaled.

“Hi,” Tobin whispered back, eyes low as she forced herself not to rock forward and into the other woman’s grasp.

Christen closed her eyes and drops her head after looking over Tobin’s shoulder, moving her hand to Tobin’s hard abdomen. She presses her knuckles to the material of Tobin’s t-shirt first, right below her navel, before opening her hand and pressing it there.

“I missed you.” She whispers, and Tobin’s jaw clenches before she says, “Me too. I’m sorry if you were sleeping. I couldn’t- I had to see you.”

Christen lifts her head, finding herself within Tobin’s space, and she smiles as she whispers- “I’m glad you did.”

They stare at one another for a second, eyes peeling to each other’s lips. It takes only a second, a tiny transgression of approval sought from eye contact, before Christen’s leaning in. She pauses before connecting their mouths, watching Tobin’s lips open just a fraction in anticipation, before connecting them as they’d longed to do.

Chills coat Tobin’s fingertips, and as she pulls apart- she discovers that the challenge has only begun.

She’d had reason to keep her hands off before. Now, in these moments, Tobin was having trouble finding one good enough.

A thousand images that she’s already fantasized flashes before her eyes. How it would feel to have Christen pressed against her, underneath her, above her, trailing her tongue places that she’s yet to see or explore. Like a slow-moving train, she knew that they would get there when they got there, but it didn’t keep her from reveling in the challenge of sweet agony.

And agony it was.

Christen moves her hands to the midfielder’s shoulders, gripping the muscles tightly, feeling strong hands wrap around the sides of her hips. Tobin does this thing- where she grabs at the back of her hips, feeling the curve of Christen’s ass, and it’s low enough to let Christen know that she’d trying to cop at least _some_ of a feel, but high enough to be safe for a typical hug. It _infuriates_ Christen in all the right ways. Makes her want to tell Tobin to just _do something_ if she was going to already, makes her thread her fingers through Tobin’s hair and tug as their tongues meet for the second time. And she nearly finds herself pressed back against the door after tugging at Tobin’s hair like _that_.

_Nearly._

But suddenly, Tobin is snatching away from her as the room door across the hall from them is opened, and Pinoe is stepping out in a hoodie and shorts, smirking at the sight of them standing _a little_ too close to be friendly. Most people could kiss and not tell, but not Tobin Heath. Her eyes became lower the more sexually frustrated she got, her lips were easily swollen, it was a dead give away to anyone who knew what it looked like. And Pinoe wouldn’t tell anyone, she wasn’t _that_ teammate, she wasn’t _Kelley_ , but still-

“Don’t miss curfew, _Tobin_. Trying to win a World Cup here.”

And win a World Cup they do.

The beginning of anything was never simple for Tobin, but Tobin _loved_ a challenge, because honestly- Tobin loved _winning._ And standing on that podium, somewhere off in Canada, as confetti rains down upon her and her teammates while they lift the trophy up into the air… Tobin wraps her arm around Christen- around the woman that’s changed Tobin’s life, and she knows-

 _She just_ _knows-_

That she’s won it all.


	2. pancakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But what if I'm not playing mind games with you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One-shot collection, installment two! 
> 
> Just a little addition to hold you guys over until Afterglow is completed. Always wanted to delve into corporate CP, so this one was a lot of fun to write. 
> 
> xoxo, enjoy

“Megan, _no._ ”

The two sharp words are clipped, coming out of Christen’s mouth, and she quickly rolls her eyes at the mischievous look that takes over the blonde’s face. She huffs, then. Ignoring the way that Megan tilts her head to the side in order to study her carefully.

It had been such a long day already. She was still in the middle of adjusting to the new law firm, having only moved to Portland three weeks ago, and all she’d wanted to do tonight was relax in her bathtub and cook herself dinner. She’d even decided this morning around 10 o’clock that she would check out a local decoration and furniture store, knowing that her apartment was still too sterile. It felt like a second office and not yet like home.

So, no- there was no _possible_ way in hell that she was falling for Megan’s trap. The woman had been trying to pressure her into this for the last three days, and each of those three days had seen her shot down.

Christen didn’t want to go out for dinner. She didn’t need a date. And she damn sure didn’t need a _blind date,_ at that.

“Why not? It’s Friday night. What else could you possibly have going on?”

Tilting her head to the ceiling of her office, she sighs passively with a smile before returning her gaze to the city below. They had just arrived back from grabbing lunch at one of the local pubs that shares the same block as her firm. Megan, her new work friend (her only real friend in the city), sat with her at her black glass desk, two Greek salads and two water cups between them. She’d managed to slide all of her leather-binded legal pads and manilla folders off to the side to make room from their food, but the view of them in her peripheral’s was a steady reminder of how busy she was, of how much work she still had to do before going home.

Multiple reasons of why she wasn’t up for it tonight were swirling in her head. The fact was- Portland wasn’t LA. Her office view included the harbor and the city, but not the blinding sunlight or the beaches that she’d grown up on. The rain had been slowly dampening her mood, draining all of her vitamin D.

Christen was tired. Exhausted, actually.

And she was sad, though she’d never be one to admit it. Los Angeles came with a lot of baggage, all things that she had left behind to take this job and pay raise. Her family, her friends, her once home on Manhattan Beach.

Her ex-girlfriend. The woman whom she been with exclusively for three years. The woman whom she thought was going to propose to her, yet instead had started off their weekly dinner date with eight little words that pushed her thoughts of romance six feet under.

_I need to talk to you about something._

It wasn’t a proposal. That’s for sure. It was exactly the opposite. And while Christen had handled it well, it had caused her to realize that she needed to focus on other things- mostly beginning with herself. She decided she wanted to go hiking. Wanted to start meditating more. Wanted to start working out more. Reading more books. Eating clean. Taking baths alone and going to the cinema alone and orgasming alone in a comfortable bed without the expectancy of having to return the favor.

The more she thought about it, the more against having a relationship she became. Despite already hating the idea of starting over with someone else, she found that everywhere she looked in Los Angeles- the people were all the same. They looked the same. Acted the same. Lived life the same way. She had the wherewithal to understand that Portland women would be the same, too. She figured it was a West Coast thing. The clothes. The attitudes. The obsession with ego and the self. The women typically wanted one of two things- casual sex or an overnight marriage, and neither were things she wanted to provide.

Those looking for casual sex were likely driven by their own emotional immaturity, their inability to be tied down, their inability to need stability in their lives. These women took up most of the LA lesbian scene, especially the types of women that she was typically attracted to. They likely had a few partners they drifted around with. Nothing was ever serious. Nothing was ever stable. Christen was only serious and stable.

Those looking for marriage? That made her run for the hills. Sure, relationships were meant to be taken seriously, noting to her first point about not wanting something casual. It was a bond between two people. _Of-course it was serious._ However, there was something incredibly off-putting about being asked to move in with someone when you’d only been dating the person for a few weeks. She didn’t believe in love at first sight. She didn’t even believe that you could fully love someone until you spent a significant amount of time with them. In both instances, she was sure that there could be exceptions, however none of it mattered- she wasn’t interested in the exceptions either.

And the idea of starting over felt like looking for a finish line without finding one. It was a journey that exhausted her just to think about.

So here she was. A little lonely, a little sad, but doing the best she could. Her bosses were easy to impress. She was enjoying the distraction of work- even managing to go hiking a couple of Oregon’s trails during the last two weekends. She’d been meditating every single day, and eating better, and sleeping nearly a full eight hours. She liked the alone time. She liked having a bed to herself.

A blind date was the absolute _last_ thing on Christen’s mind.

“I’ve got a hot date tonight, already.” She mumbled up at the woman.

Megan was a wonderful co-worker and person; they’d became quick friends after Christen moved into the office right next to hers. The blonde attorney had taken her under her wing when she arrived, showing her around the massive high-rise, taking her out for coffee, giving her the typical office drama heads-up. It was a bit of a forced friendship at first, given how social Megan is when Christen is anything but.

Still, it was nice to have a friend, and Megan was one of the good ones.

The attorney’s eyes squinted as she forked a bite of salad into her mouth, “No way. With _who_?”

Christen smirked. “My bathtub. And a bottle of prosecco that I’ll pick up at the grocery store.”

She laughed as the blonde scoffed in disapproval. It was silent for a few seconds as they chewed and swallowed their food, then Megan put her fork down with a huff, another mischievous look falling over her face.

The green-eyed attorney scowled. “Pinoe. No. Whatever you’re about to say- my answer is no.”

“What if I brought you coffee every day for the rest of the week?” She prodded the California native.

“Nope.”

“What if I said that I would revise your compliance drafts?”

Christen pretended to think about it for a second. “Hmm. Nope.”

Megan stalled, mouth twisting up as her brain calculated her best method of approach. _What is one thing that Christen absolutely hates doing?_

She thought long and hard about it, going through all of their previous conversations in order to attempt to find something that would satisfy the woman into saying yes. Christen was mildly entertained by her effort.

“Why are you so hellbent on me meeting this person? To the point of bribery? You won’t even tell me anything about her.” She complained, closing the lid to her salad and chucking it into her office trashcan. Her hand reached beneath her desk, slipping the black red-bottom heels off of her sore feet and setting them to the side, allowing her toes to finally breathe and wiggle beneath her pantyhose.

“What? Is she one of Sue’s basketball friends?”

Megan shook her head. “Nope.”

“So she isn’t an athlete?”

Megan winced, knowing how Christen felt about the matter, it was one of the main reasons why she hadn’t said anything to the young attorney about _who_ exactly it was that she wanted to set her up with. Christen had offhandedly mentioned during their second day of working together, after explaining Sue’s career, that she couldn’t date an athlete. But, really- the only friends Megan had were athletes, courtesy of marrying a professional basketball player, and after one night spent with the woman in question- Megan knew she had to put them together.

Christen closed her eyelids, slightly shaking her head back and forth with a small smile. “Megan.” She whispered. “I don’t date athletes, you know this.”

“Because they’re totally loaded and totally hot? That makes no sense, and I know you have sense.” The blonde scoffed again, referring to her own wife.

It was one of those moments. One of those moments when you’re newly friends with someone, and you haven’t had much time to get into a long conversation with them about your past. When they don’t know everything about you yet, and you want them to know- you want to let it all out because you trust them and crave their empathy. But they were at work, and they only had ten minutes left before their lunch hour was over. It just wasn’t the time or place.

“Because they’re unstable.”

_Because my ex was one. Because they are never anywhere permanent for any extended length of time. Because they break up with you and drop the news that their team has sold their rights to a league across the globe. Because I enjoy being alone. I think._

“What if she is stable, apart from a few odd weeks out of the year? And totally loaded? And totally hot?”

Christen shook her head again with a smirk, pulling her workload of files back over to the center of her desk and watching the woman grovel for a yes.

“Shit.” Megan cursed, running out of options. She was under strict instructions to cultivate this date through getting Christen to agree to it, while another one of Sue’s friends was currently forcing the woman in question to also agree. It was almost tragically ironic to her. Christen wouldn’t date athletes and the athlete preferred to have dates not last longer than an overnight trip back to her place _._ She was almost worried that it would crash and burn if Christen agreed, knowing how polar-opposite the two of them were.

However, she was going to try. In Megan’s eyes, they were perfect for one another. She didn’t even understand how it came to her, but she just knew. Something had clicked that night at the bar, after watching said athlete navigate her way through conversation after conversation with an energy Megan had never seen or been around. _She would like Christen._ She’d thought. _They’d be so good for one another, fit together so well._

The athlete’s best friend, Kelley, had been sitting at her side- and once Megan had the opportunity, she’d leaned over and whispered into the freckled woman’s space, _“I need your help with something. Are you good at forcing two complete strangers on a blind date?”_

The game had begun, and Megan had always enjoyed playing matchmaker.

She studied the young attorney as she padded across the concrete floor to her coffee station, set against the wall that intersected her floor-to-ceiling window. She watched as she loaded a k-cup into the Keurig and pressed a button, hearing the machine roar to life as it filled her white mug with the dark caffeinated liquid.

The realization dawned upon her. The one singular thing that Christen hated most, having told her so as they grabbed breakfast before work a few days ago. She smiled an evil smile. Christen _hated_ interviewing paralegals. She hated having to watch people suffer through the nerves of an interview. Hated making small talk. Hated having to tell people that they didn’t get the job. Her assistant had been unable to do it for her, already piled high with office work herself, which meant that Christen was in charge of the grueling task. 

“What if I do your interviews for you on Tuesday?”

Christen stopped moving from her spot in front of the table, hands no longer stirring the cream into her coffee as she had been doing before. Megan drove a hard bargain with this one. It was brutal inducement. If there was one thing she hated most out of her job…

She calculated and weighed her options. The interviews took up a whole half-day, they were long and excruciating to sit through. She’d have to weed through her first pool of candidates and then hold second interviews. Her department of the corporate firm needed three fresh paralegals. Her assistant had compiled a list of twenty possible leads, meaning that she’d have to call and disappoint at least seventeen young people. Or, she could trade that in and suffer through a ridiculous two-hour blind date. She could call Megan as soon as she dipped out, tell her it wasn’t going to work, tell her that she didn’t get on with the woman.

It would be over before it even began.

“And the next round, too? And calling people to let them know we passed on their application?”

Megan smiled, expecting nothing less than for the woman to sweeten her side of the deal, knowing that she was making a deal with an attorney. “I’ll even file the paperwork, _darling_.” In her best sing-song voice, she further bribed the green-eyed woman.

Christen bit out a curse word, internally and externally cursing herself for hating that part of her job so much. The deal was so sweet, though. Like a good luxury sale, or free tickets to a ball game. There wasn’t an inch of her that could pass it up.

On one shoulder, the angel argued with her that she should just suck it up, do her job on Tuesday, and get it over with. That this would waste her time. That this could possibly make her feel even more lonely. That she could trip up, like the woman, and end up in another doomed relationship. On the other, the devil told her that she would be an absolute idiot if she did not say yes. That she would be wasting her time anyways. That there were a million and a half things that she could do during the half day that it took to interview a pool of twenty paralegals.

Throwing caution to the wind, Christen turned around, staring at her new friend with a disapproving gaze, mad that she’d been put between a rock and a hard place.

“Fine.” She bit out, scorned at the celebratory fist pumps Megan gave into the air, “But I am not going on a second date with her, so don’t even try it. And I’m going to go home right afterwards, _alone,_ and I’m never going to talk to her again.”

Megan looked down at her watch, a fancy Rolex, a gift from her wife, noticing that it was nearing time for her to walk down the hall to her own office. She stands as Christen sits back down at her desk, throwing the Californian a quick wink. Almost as if to say- _We’ll see about that, Press._

“I’ll email you the details in a few. Wear something nice and try to enjoy yourself.”

Christen could only roll her eyes.

The email came in at 3:30, just as Christen was getting ready to figuratively launch herself out of her massive skyscraper window. She’d just walked out of her final meeting for the day, irritated that she’d just wasted an entire hour keeping grown men from being distracted as she went over a recent update from their case. It was a taxing job, working for a corporate law firm, managing case files for multi-million-dollar industries that were her clients. She enjoyed the busy work of law. She enjoyed the few clients that came to her with real issues and real problems to solve. It was even nicer doing it from the Pacific Northwest, finding that the majority of companies here didn’t come with the extra baggage and attitudes that LA companies came with.

However, some clients wasted her time. Not in the sense that she didn’t do her job correctly. The $300 hourly price tag for her to sit in a conference room kept her attentive and functioning without failure regardless of what dull conversations she had to sit through, but she found herself occasionally wanting to ask the men “ _Why am I here?”._

The dull headache she carried was a kind reminder of her irritation. And when she opened up her email, with a whole hour and a half left to the day, the headache only seemed to intensify.

The email was sent from Megan’s personal inbox to her own personal one, containing details of tonight’s blind date with a suggestive _and not at all helpful_ winky face at the end.

_You’re eating at Roe. 515 SW Broadway Street. Suite 100. 8pm sharp. The reservation is under my name so you won’t go snooping her on the internet. Hope you like seafood. Don’t be late!!! ;)_

She read the email twice, pausing halfway through the doorframe of her office before spinning on her heels and heading back down the hallway. The door to Megan’s office was ajar, like she usually kept it, and Christen peaked half of her body in just as Megan lifted her head from her computer. A wicked smile crossed her face.

“You have such an identifiable walk, Press. I can hear your heels from a mile away.”

Christen’s scowl only increased.

“So you’re hooking me up with someone I can google? That’s not comforting.”

Megan rolled her eyes. “As if she couldn’t google you? And who said anything about hooking up? Thought you were gonna go home afterwards? _Alone?_ ”

Christen thought about it, realizing that she was also searchable on the internet herself. She makes a mental checklist to actually Google herself discreetly when she has a moment, wanting to know what would pop up if she checked. The thought had never occurred to her, but she’d been in a few higher-profile cases before at her Los Angeles firm, she had a bit of a perfect record at Stanford Law School, so she guessed that _something_ was bound to pop up.

She then registered the last part of Megan’s remark back to her, making her give the woman a concrete glance and straighten her spine even more. “I am.”

Megan shrugged, smirking and turning back to her computer, acting like she didn’t believe a word of what Christen said.

“Will you at least tell me what sport she plays?” The attorney tried to push for more info, thinking that if she knew the sport, she could do a quick Google search and possibly narrow it down. Part of her was curious, part of her wanted to know what to expect because she _hated_ surprises, and part of her was feeling something she’d not anticipated feeling. Part of her was nervous.

“Nope.” Megan continued staring at her computer, refusing to look up at the woman, refusing to give her even an inch of a hint.

“Basketball? Tennis? Hockey?” Christen pried, or at least tried to. “Soccer?” She offered the last option, internally praying that Megan wouldn’t flinch or move a muscle as she said it, not wanting her blind date to be another soccer player, not realizing that Megan had quietly caught onto the way her voice had wavered on the last bit.

The blonde attorney thought critically for a moment, piecing the bits together that she’d learned from Christen’s past. She knew she was single. She knew she refused to date athletes (until four hours from now). She caught onto the way Christen seemed to cower at the last sport. It suddenly occurred to her why the woman didn’t want to date an athlete, assuming that she’d been in a relationship with one already.

Megan prayed in her head that she wasn’t setting Christen up with one of her ex’s teammates, or _shit_ \- setting her up with her actual ex.

“I’m not telling you that. But I _am_ telling you that you will have fun tonight. I just know that you will. If you relax a little bit.”

Christen huffed, growing more and more over it as the day wore on. She despised being nervous, especially when she was getting nervous over something she didn’t even want to do in the first place, and all she could hold on to were the thoughts of how relaxing her bubble bath would be once she finally arrived home after all was said and done tonight.

With narrowed eyes and a growing headache, Christen sighed and turned to leave the office, watching the smile grow on her friend’s face. “I am relaxed- thank you very much.”

Megan could only laugh as the woman returned to her office, shaking her head at the many possibilities of how tonight was going to go. Regardless of whether or not it went well, she knew she’d be receiving a phone call at some point tonight.

Or- if things went _really_ well, she might even be receiving a phone call in the morning, which sounded like a better option to her. Christen was so naturally rigid, so uptight in a way that one almost assumed she’d been that way her whole life. All she needed was a little fun, something to put a smile on her face during the day, something that Megan hadn’t seen a lot of since Christen was hired.

She’d had to pull strings to get the reservation set at last minute, having her wife’s assistant call the restaurant, using the basketball player’s status to get the restaurant to rearrange enough space for the two women. She shook her head with a smile, reading over a file that she’d pulled up on her computer without paying much attention to it, praying to the universe that things would work out the way she hoped they would for the two of them.

Christen’s fingers twitched around her clutch as she pushed the door open to the restaurant, noting immediately that the place was incredibly nice, up to par with her own standards. White cloth round tables, mood lighting, expensive cutlery and chandeliers. People talked quietly amongst themselves in the main room. It was an intimate setting, which she usually preferred on the few times that she’d done something like this, but now- it was doing nothing to calm her raging mind.

She’d take a sports bar at this point. Any bit of white noise to drown out her apprehension, because her thoughts were deafening enough by themselves.

Her condo was only a few blocks from the restaurant, but the cab ride had felt like it lasted forever. The sleek pair of Louboutin’s she’d slipped on from her shoe closet, despite being only 4-inch black booties, had prevented her from walking the few blocks like she’d much have preferred to do. She’d changed out of her work dress, slipping it onto a hanger to be dry-cleaned, and grabbed one of her nicer dresses that she’d saved for a night out. This one was black, nearly backless, with a lace chest and sleeves. Her dark hair was curled into beautiful waves that cascaded across her shoulders, the same style she’d worn to work that day, and the only other thing she’d truly altered from her professional look was a dark smokey eye-shadow. It brought out her eyes, sure, but she’d frowned the whole time while applying the makeup.

_Why am I getting dressed up? Why am I doing this? Why do I care?_

The questions were plaguing her, daring her to wipe the makeup off yet knowing that she wouldn’t. It had taken an act of God to drag her out of her own front door, having sat staring at it aimlessly from her kitchen island for thirty minutes before it was time to go. Even if she didn’t want to, she wouldn’t be late. That would have been in bad taste, and Christen didn’t do much of anything in bad taste.

“Reservation under Megan Rapinoe, please.” She smiled halfheartedly at the host, a young man dressed finely in a black dress shirt and tie. He clicked through his tablet and nodded towards her with a smile.

“Your guest arrived a few moments ago, I’ll escort you to our second seating room. It truly has the best seats in the house.” He winked at her with a friendly charm, turning back to his tablet to click a few things before moving around the small counter.

With a frown growing larger by the second, she double checked her wristwatch, making sure that she hadn’t read the time wrong and ended up late. Relieved to see that it was still ten minutes before their agreed upon time, Christen let a slow breath escape her nose as she followed the host towards the seating room. In the back of her mind, the attorney was thankful to know that the woman in question was there early, knowing how she always appreciated a little punctuality.

He’d opened the large wooden main door to the second seating room, allowing Christen to instantly take in the views of the massive floor to ceiling windows lining the far wall, how their openness reflected the brightly-lit harbor back onto the tables and chairs. The room was small, and even more intimate than the last small room she’d been in. Dim lighting, expensive looking tables and chairs, the whole nine.

They rounded a corner that was blocked by a staircase, allowing Christen to catch the first glimpse of exactly _who_ she was expected to spend her next couple of hours with. Everything happened in slow motion, yet so quickly that the host could barely process how he’d ended up on the opposite side of the staircase with the startled woman.

Christen had caught one glimpse of the mystery girl, how she sat looking _far too relaxed_ in her chair that was part of a two-person table sat against the window. Her eyes casted outwards towards the harbor, not yet alerted to the approaching host and attorney. Christen had recognized that tan jawline instantly, recognized those broad shoulders and gaunt figures in a matter of milliseconds, and it took another millisecond for her to wrap long fingers around the hosts elbow and pull him back around the staircase, effectively blocking the two of them from being seen by her dinner guest.

“Miss? Are you alright?” He’d asked her, taking in her sharp features, concerned for the woman.

Christen winced, brain turning as she struggled to find a way to explain her very odd actions.

“I’m on a blind date with the person sitting at that table. My friend set me up.” She blurted out. “Well- it was supposed to be blind, but-”

His eyebrows drew together in gentle confusion, not quite understanding why the woman was upset. “Are you not happy with the guest?” He mumbled quietly, “I would be more than happy to call you a cab if you are uncomfortable.”

Her head shook. “ _No_ \- that’s not… It’s not that I’m-“ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

“Are you nervous?” The question was gentle. “It’s okay to be nervous. I’m sure you will do fine.” He looked at her expectantly, reassuringly.

Christen noticed that his name tag said _Kyle._ She wondered why Kyle was being so kind to her, silently thanking him for taking the spare seconds out of his busy job to calmly speak to her after she’d rudely snatched him backwards. She owed him one for following along. For talking her down.

“I’m not nervous.” Her head shook again, struggling to find the words when she couldn’t understand how she felt, struggling to push down the anxiety that had spiked into a million sharp shards beneath her rib-cage after catching a glimpse of that table. “I just don’t know if this is something I’m ready for. Could I use a restroom for a moment?”

His head nodded with an understanding smile, perfect teeth gleaming beneath the warm light above them. “It’s right behind you. Would you like for me to wait for you?”

She turned, then. Finding the hallway and the door to the bathroom marked _‘Ladies’._ She turned back towards the friendly host. “No, that’s alright. I just need a second and then I’ll go over there.”

His expression was understanding as he nodded to her, nothing short of it, almost as if he’d been in this situation himself and was entirely empathetic. “Okay. Well, good luck to you both. I’ll be through that door if you change your mind about the cab.”

As she turned towards the hallway that contained the restroom, his hand found her elbow, just as she’d done to him before, directing her attention backwards for a second. “I don’t know if saying this will make you feel better, but- she was just as nervous when I seated her.”

 _No._ Christen thought, despite smiling and thanking him anyways. _It doesn’t make me feel better. If she is nervous then that means she expects something, and that something was probably sex._ Christen was the last person who wanted to give that to the athlete.

With the bathroom door shut and locked behind her, Christen angrily fished out her cellphone, finding her co-workers contact and pressing her number.

“ _Press! Wait, why are you calling so soon? Did something happen?”_ Megan’s tone was dire, then- “ _Oh God, please tell me you didn’t stand her up.”_

“No Megan, I haven’t stood her up. _Yet._ ” Christen seethed, pressing the cellphone into her cheek, checking her watch to make sure she still had time left. She had 6 minutes to go. “I’m currently in the bathroom, wondering what the hell you were thinking.”

The line was silent for a second. “ _Um, I’m not sure I’m following.”_ The blonde attorney said quietly, trying to remember if there was any surprises that she’d forgotten to tell the woman about aside from who the date was with. She looked over the couch at Sue, who only shrugged her shoulders, not sure what Christen was talking about either.

“Why is Tobin Heath sitting at my table?”

“ _Why is that a bad thing? Do you know her?”_

Christen rolled her eyes, speaking through gritted teeth. “Who fucking doesn’t.”

Megan winced at the same time as Sue, both considering that Christen had a fair point.

“Look.” The attorney breathed through her nose again, pinching the bridge of her nose, careful not to smear her eye makeup as she calmed her voice. “I know you guys think I need to get laid. And you know what, maybe I do. But I have no interest in sitting through this. I have no interest in screwing the Pacific Northwest’s _chronic_ _lothario._ Okay? I’m pretty sure I have friends in Los Angeles who have had relations with her. I don’t want every West Coast Youtuber lesbian’s sloppy seconds. This isn’t _me,_ Megan.”

Sue’s calming voice came through the phone, another person who Christen considered a new friend. Sue was like an anchor that grounded Megan’s ship of chaotic chaos, someone that Christen knew she could immediately trust and confide in. Someone who was calm in a way that calmed her.

“ _I know what you’ve probably heard about her. But trust me, okay? She isn’t all bad. Tobin is one of my closest friends, she wouldn’t hurt you-“_

Frustration grew in the young attorney. “I’m not worried about getting hurt.”

She was worried about wasting her time. She was worried about this getting back to her ex, knowing that her ex had a fine distaste for the woman who was currently seated at their table, a distaste built upon years and years of being unable to beat the star soccer player on a club and international level. Despite her own irritation with how things had ended between them, she’d not wanted to hurt her- not wanted to make the woman jealous if word got back to her, when she knew that the demise of their relationship was inevitable and had hurt them both.

And Tobin Heath had built a reputation for herself. Christen knew this from the occasional bitching she’d listened to by her ex, from the handful of people who had mentioned the woman’s name in passing- having slept with her, having had friends who slept with her, or mostly- _wanting_ to sleep with her. It was a household name within the female gay community, Christen didn’t want to become another number, she didn’t even want the soccer player to know her name.

 _“Then why not just give it a try? Just talk to her. You already told Megan that nothing was coming out of it anyways. Maybe you could at least gain a friend.”_ The basketball player quietly bargained with her, throwing out a fair argument to Christen’s inhibitions.

She thought on it for a few seconds. Checking her watch again. One minute remained. She had to make a decision.

Christen looked at herself in the nice bathroom mirror, studying her own hesitant reflection, allowing Sue’s words to pinball through her inner turmoil.

_It would be a shame to let this dress go to waste._

“Okay.” Christen conceded, sighing. She gave them both goodbyes’, telling them that she would try, that she would call at some point tonight or tomorrow, knowing that she’d likely be back in the office on a Saturday.

Her guard as high as it could go, Christen slipped her cellphone back into her clutch and turned the bathroom doorknob.

Her walk to the reserved table was nearly in slow motion. Christen had a vice-grip around her clutch, right hand prepared and ready to shake the athletes. Without thinking about it, she walked into it like any old business transaction, further reminding her of how out of practice she truly was.

It wasn’t unknown to her that Tobin Heath was attractive. She’d watched her from the stands over the years at various competitions against her ex’s teams. Providence Park had a giant mural-like poster draped across the side of the stadium that boasted their international players in Thorn’s jerseys, with none other than Tobin Heath at the center of it. She had to drive by it twice already while heading out of the city. The woman was well known, well loved, and respected among Women’s Soccer fans.

None of it phased Christen before. Not until she softly rounded the corner of Tobin’s chair. Not until she caught a glimpse of what the athlete looked like up-close. Not until she was able to take in Tobin’s light wash skinny jeans, her black leather men’s Chelsea boots, her black and silk relaxed-fit button up shirt.

Tobin turned her head upon being approached, locking eyes with Christen, and the attorney could tell that the athlete had been just as taken back by her appearance as she had been. Sharp green eyes connected to soft brown ones, slightly pulling each woman off of their own course at what they had expected the other to look like. Photos and long-distance stadium views of the gaunt athlete did nothing to truly prepare someone for what she looked like in person. The jawline was somehow sharper. Her cheekbones were somehow more sculpted. Her eyes a little more vivid and direct.

If Christen had been surprised at her attractiveness- Tobin was fucking _floored,_ mouth parting upon seeing the green-eyed woman, face a little flush, eyes widening in appreciation.

The attorney had given the athlete the benefit of the doubt once she registered the look on her face- once she registered that Tobin thought she _too_ was beautiful, once she registered that Tobin seemed even a little embarrassed at her own shock.

And if the megawatt smile that had came over the athlete, as she scooted her chair back to stand, was anything to go off of- Christen would even call herself… _charmed._

“Hi,” Tobin began to stand, offering her own hand to the attorney.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Christen shook her hand, noticing Tobin’s firm grip. “I’m Christen.”

The charm had lasted for about as long as it took for Tobin to fully stand and sidestep Christen’s handshake for a light hug. It lasted just about as long as it took for Christen to breathe in Tobin’s incredible cologne against her shoulder, feeling the athlete press a strong hand against the small of the attorney’s back above her dress.

It lasted just about as long as it took for Tobin to back out of the hug, an attractive glint in her eye and a smile on her face, eyes darting slowly across Christen’s body as she said in a low and sultry voice-

“I would say that I assume you’re the lucky girl who gets to have dinner with me tonight, but I’m quickly realizing that I may have gotten it wrong.”

 _God._ Christen groaned internally, offended smile pulling across her features. _Just another reason why I don’t date athletes._

She studied Tobin’s confidence as she watched her sit in her own seat across the table after Christen backed out of their space to sit down, left hand flexing to unclasp one of her dress shirt buttons and roll the sleeve up her wrist. Her right hand did the same to her left wrist, revealing a silver and diamond encrusted Rolex that contrasted against her tan skin. It somehow looked even more expensive than the one Megan had been wearing earlier.

Christen quickly cut the bullshit, dropping her eyes to the table with a sigh before regarding Tobin with the smallest smile she could force.

“I would say that I just got off the phone with Sue Bird, who told me not to take you for a typical womanizer.” She bit the side of her lip, studying the slight changes in Tobin’s expression as she registered what the attorney was saying. “But I’m quickly realizing that _she_ may have gotten it wrong.”

Tobin’s eyebrow raised, indicating to Christen that her words were taken as a challenge, though the smirk failed to drop from her face. The woman exuded confidence in herself. A confidence that Christen wasn’t sure that she could say was displaced. And in any typical situation, she would champion a woman being confident in herself. More of it was needed in the world. As a female in a male dominated industry, she understood how important and how necessary of a thing it was to have.

However, the confidence was directed at her, and had a man pulled a line and looked at her like that before even introducing his name- Christen knew that she would have immediately turned on her heel, heading for the exit, finding something better to do with her night. Part of her was asking what kept her from doing just that.

She had promised Sue that she would try, though. And she desperately needed Megan to do those interviews. A deal was a deal.

Christen studied her carefully as she was being studied herself. Both women were quiet; and Christen felt like she was stuck in the middle of a cat and mouse game that she had no interest in playing. The attorney wondered where the athlete’s nerves were, those nerves that the host had spoken of.

“So you know who I am then?” Tobin asked her. “Or, at least you think you do?”

The ball was put back in her court, a lighthearted argument starting from the athlete’s mouth. It appeared to her that the athlete had no clue that Christen was a lawyer. It was her job to argue.

“I know _of you_. Sure.” Christen nodded, feigning disinterest. She sighed a heavy sigh, meeting eyes with the woman across the table from beneath her dark eyelashes, contemplating her next words. “Look, I’m here because my co-worker borderline blackmailed me into coming. I’m not into dating and I don’t do hookups, and I enjoy it that way. You and I can have a pleasant dinner and go our separate ways if what you’re aiming for with those pickup lines is to bed me.”

Both of Tobin’s eyebrows shot up at that, an amused expression crossing her features.

“Either way, I’m not here to stroke your ego, Tobin. So please don’t try to flatter me.”

The athlete stilled for a few seconds, smirk still out to play, as her eyes darted back and forth between Christen’s own serious ones. She sighed then, smiling, lazily pulling her elbows to rest on the table to allow her to lean in closely. Two long fingers darted out, her index and her middle, beckoning Christen forward so that they could meet in the center of the table. Christen almost rolled her eyes, but she refrained, interested enough in what the soccer player could possibly say- so she leaned over.

Tobin leaned in more once Christen’s face was close enough, breath ghosting across Christen’s jawline as she lined her lips to Christen’s ear.

“ _As sweet as that sounds_.” Tobin whispered with a smile. “The only person who’s flattering you is yourself.”

The attorney pulled back, dazed, mouth ajar at the soccer players words, taking in the stoic yet cocky expression that was pulling at Tobin’s eyes and lips. It was the first time Christen had ever been equally matched in a battle of words, at least since leaving college. To anyone else, the conversation would have simultaneously ruined any chance for both parties to enjoy their evening. But the two parties currently seated were not just anyone.

Apart from never having the wind knocked out at her over a woman’s beauty- Tobin had never been called out on her bullshit mere seconds after meeting anyone. She had never met someone so cunning and so sharp as Christen, in both mind and body. The woman had peaked Tobin’s interest in a matter of seconds, before she’d even shook hands with her or spoken a word. The athlete instant reaction had been her usual one, thoughts of- _How fast can I get her home?_ Riddled her brain. Admittedly, her pickup line was a little worse for wear, but not an ounce of what she said hadn’t been true.

She _did_ find herself to be the lucky one. Lucky to have this bombshell, goddess of a woman smiling at her and offering her hand to shake, introducing herself with a tight smile and eyes so piercing that it nearly brought the soccer player to her knees.

When Christen opened her mouth, a few things happened inside of Tobin’s brain. She was instantly put in her place, despite knowing that she’d never admit to it. Christen’s quick and quiet words had humbled her, reminding her that some were immune to her innocent charm, her corny pickup lines. Second, she had realized that the green-eyed stranger was going to be a challenge.

Not a challenge to _bed_ her, necessarily. Despite that being something that Tobin wouldn’t have turned, and will not turn down if offered. But to _know her_ on any level, biblical or not. The athlete couldn’t recall a single instance when she’d met someone who’s walls were so high, so guarded, barring her from conversation and closeness. Christen had a shield surrounding her, taller than the clouds and sealed off with bolts and bulletproof glass, one that Tobin was becoming hellbent on tearing down.

She quickly realized, thirdly, that there was only one true way to do that.

Tobin was going to have to meet Christen at her level. It was a climb she was fully prepared to make. Her only goal of the night had since then switched. Now, she was determined to get a smile out of the woman.

A true, genuine smile. She imagined that the woman’s genuine smile was _breathtaking._ All she wanted was to see it, maybe even get her to laugh.

So, she played her cards right. Squaring up. Slowing herself down. Dealing Christen a taste of her own quick wit.

“Now that’s out of the way,” Tobin smiled genuinely to the attorney, leaning back in her seat lazily as the waiter approached their table. “What would you like to drink?”

The waiter repeated the same question once he arrived, asking for their drink order, and for a second- Christen couldn’t take her eyes off of the other woman. How bold she was. How truly, genuinely, confident she was, in the most relaxed way she’d ever seen. If she were being honest- Tobin not apologizing or seeming a bit ashamed at her own actions had intrigued her, had caused her to take a second glance. They stared at one another through the waiter’s introduction and questions.

The attorney realized that she might have underestimated her dinner guest, might should have given her the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer. How she came to that conclusion in only the short time span of a few words- she had no idea.

It was going to be a long night.

Christen broke their gaze to look up at the waiter, “I’ll have a martini. Gin. Neat, please. With two olives.”

Tobin’s eyebrows raised again, impressed with the woman’s drink options. The never-ending smirk grew even wider on her face, sending Christen into a spiral of fury. Everything she did seemed amusing to the athlete, and it pissed her off eternally. It pissed her off in a way that made her defiant, made her chest blush in resentment, and it was difficult for her not to believe that Tobin was doing it intentionally. She admitted subconsciously and in spite that it infuriated her to the point of being turned on.

“Do you guys serve Heineken non-alcoholic?” Tobin asked softly, scanning over the menu in front of her again to make sure that she didn’t read over that selection accidentally. She could feel Christen’s eyes drilling into her skull. “Or is there any way that I would be able to get ahold of one of those?”

The man nodded at her kindly, “We could get that for you Miss Heath, is there anything else the two of you would like? And will you be experiencing the Chef’s Menu tonight?”

Christen quirked an eyebrow at the familiarity between the server and the soccer player, indicating that Tobin had been here before, and frequently. Either frequently enough that he’d refer to her by name, or she’d truly made _that_ much of an impression.

It bit at her insides, without knowing exactly _why,_ but something about a feeling that she was probably one of the multiple women that had been seated here across a table from her. She wondered if those women fell for the game. Wondered if Tobin had wined and dined them expertly, feeding them shitty pickup lines for dessert. She didn’t even want to imagine what happened afterwards, and that bit at her insides too, unable to keep from imagining herself in their place.

Tobin glanced at Christen, waiting for an answer, coolly checking to see if she approved of the preselected seven-course meal.

“I’m fine with that. Thank you.” Christen mumbled without checking the price and handing the menu over, something that Tobin caught onto, only further learning about the woman despite being given no words to base her observations on. It was an odd little position, sitting across from such quietness and somehow learning more and more with every glance.

The server took down their drink orders before backing away from their table, reminding them that the dining experience will begin shortly after their drinks arrive.

“You don’t drink alcohol?” Christen asked without looking up, pouring herself water into a crystal glass from the decanter that he had placed on their table. Her throat was dry, had been since Tobin had stuck her feet into concrete five minutes ago.

Tobin shrugged, smiling, thanking Christen as she was handed the decanter. “I do, just not tonight.”

“How come?”

She thought about it for a second, watching the meticulous way that Christen folded her table napkin over her lap. “I drove here.” Tobin quietly said, sipping from her own glass. “But also, I just don’t feel like being drunk tonight. I’d rather be sober while talking to you.”

Christen nodded, ignoring the not-so-subtle flirting, then prodded some more without realizing that she was doing it. “Do you have to get drunk when you drink?”

The smile barely faded off of the athlete’s mouth, “What about you?” She questioned, turning the spotlight away from herself and onto her guest. “Do you always order rubbing alcohol with two olives?” She smirked. It was nothing but playful, as true to her nature as she could get. Christen was one of the most uptight people she’d ever met, and Tobin wasn’t sure if she was trying to get under her skin or loosen her up a little bit. Probably both.

“Only after a week like this.” The attorney mumbled, feeling the full effects of the work week wear her down. If she was home right now, she’d likely have that bottle of prosecco open and ready to join her in the bathtub. She wouldn’t drink the whole thing, like how she wouldn’t have more than one martini tonight, but just enough to let her relax the anxieties of corporate life and simmer down.

Tobin studied the raven-haired woman carefully, watching her look out of the huge window and into the bay, eyes following the lights of the cars as they trekked across the bridges. The lights created a sense of neon glow across her features, illuminating a glint from the lip gloss on her lips, illuminating her focused eyes, her perfect skin. She wanted to pull her thumb across those high cheekbones so badly that she could barely stand it- wanted to get inside of her head and plant flowers- plant a fucking garden.

“What are you thinking about?” Tobin nearly whispered, head tilted slightly to the side as she watched the attorney.

Christen let a scoff through her nose, a slight hitch of breath, “Is that what you ask all the women you bring here? Get them to loosen up a bit for you? Share all of their secrets once they start drinking?”

It was harsh. It was intended to be. Tobin chose not to be affected.

“ _Well,”_ The athlete began, smiling and sitting up a little, sharing truth with her counterpart since that’s what she seemed to be after. “Since the only _woman_ I bring here is my mother, when she’s in town, sure. I guess I do ask her what she’s thinking about. I miss her a lot, so it’s nice to check in with how she’s doing.”

“She doesn’t drink though.” Tobin added, then softly- “I guess you got her beat in that department.”

Christen softened, it was visible in the way her shoulders deflated, her eyes relaxing as she was thrown another curve. Tobin watched it all take place, watched the woman reconfigure preconception after preconception, watched her adjust to the environment and conversation.

“You don’t have to interrogate me, you know?” Tobin gave her a gentle nudge, smiling, that same flirty glint in her eyes. “I, um- I’m no better at this than you are. I don’t usually date.”

“This isn’t a date.” Christen corrected her.

“O- _kay,”_ Tobin smirked, nodding slowly, trying a different angle. “Then I don’t usually sit down with women at restaurants, outside of my family. Is that better?”

“You prefer to take them straight home instead?”

The smirk had widened, Tobin was eating it up. “Sometimes, actually. I usually prefer sex to being insulted, and I feel like most people would agree. I mean- not to shame anyone who’s into both. It’s just… not my thing.”

_Bingo._

Christen was unable to stop herself from closing her eyes with a shake of her head, fighting the smile that spread over her features at Tobin’s playfully sarcastic response. The athlete took her reaction in as best as she could, her own smile as wide as it could possibly be, skin tingling from the knowledge that she’d accomplished her first goal of the night. She committed it to memory, Polaroid snapping the moment into the back of her mind, a reminder of the first genuine smile she ever was given from Christen.

“ _There it is_.” Tobin quietly said, smile not leaving her for even a second. “That was really difficult, you know?”

“What was?” Christen relaxed back into her chair. Her walls had dropped by a few feet, not quite enough to say that she was _enjoying_ herself, but enough to say that she was now present in the moment, thoughts of her bubble bath being pushed from her mind. She knew that Tobin was chipping away at her purposefully, knew that it wasn’t exactly necessarily that she be so standoffish for the rest of the night. Her eyes took in Tobin’s warm appearance, watching the way the soccer player couldn’t seem to take her eyes off her for even a second. They were here, in one another’s space, at least for the foreseeable future, it wouldn’t kill her to lay off.

Tobin kept her gaze forward, answering Christen’s question when she knew it was the right time.

“Getting you to smile.” She said, just as their drinks were being placed onto the table.

_Bingo, again._

The first course that they shared was with tiny forks and a tiny plate, consisting of two duck slices, pickled shimeji mushroom, scallops, and bagna cauda. Little forks allowed them to slowly chew their food, and Christen had felt the effects of the gin as soon as it touched her stomach. She had only taken two sips thus far, and maybe the food really _was_ that good, or maybe Tobin was the only person she’d ever met who could hold true and intense eye contact with her for an extended amount of time- but Christen was feeling warm.

The warmth spread over her legs and stomach and chest. She swallowed her first bite of food as Tobin wiped her mouth and looked at her curiously.

“So what do you do?” The athlete had asked, placing her napkin down into her lap and taking a sip of her beer.

“I’m an attorney for the corporate, litigation, and private equity branch of Kirkland and Ellis.”

Tobin’s eyebrows shot high on her head as she smiled around another bite of food, swallowing it quickly. It amused Christen, how excited she got, how she could barely keep her smile small enough to talk.

“Holy _shit,_ I was way off.”

Christen smirked then, “Oh yeah? What did you peg me for?” She entertained the stranger briefly, amused at the expression of disbelief on Tobin’s face.

“Honestly, a professor or something. Maybe even a dean.”

“Of what field?” The attorney tilted her glass towards the athlete as she questioned her, pulling it back to sip from the rim. Tobin was mildly distracted at the way her bottom lip pressed to the martini rim, and damn did she try her hardest not to stare, especially given that she’d just started to warm the stoic woman up to her.

“Careful.” Christen warned playfully. “Your choice could ruin this.”

Tobin pretended to think, though she was genuinely considering her possibilities of what she’d _thought_ Christen would have been great at.

“From your first impression, I would have picked something like… professor of linguistics, or mathematics. Something that seems so never ending, so far off from the rest of the world.” Christen grimaced, but Tobin quickly recovered, sliding the last bite of the duck towards the green-eyed woman.

“Hold on,” The athlete rose a finger into the air, halting whatever remark Christen was about to make, “I said first impression, but… I think I’ve changed my mind by now.”

Christen tilted her head, prompting her to continue.

“The longer I sit here, I see something different than passion for a job that would make you so… cold and _tired_ and, now you’ve got this light in your eye.”

Tobin studied her carefully, eyes running over Christen’s features, appreciating them with every last glance. “You’ve dreamily glanced out that window at least ten times since you’ve sat down. Your face lit up when they brought the food out, and I could tell that you appreciated how well it was put together. That tells me you notice beauty. You close your eyes every time you take a sip of that drink, despite knowing that gin from the bottle taste like gasoline, no matter how expensive it is. So that tells me that you enjoy the little things, even if it comes with a bit of pain-

Christen smirked, downing the last bite of food. Then she flirted, opening her mouth before she could even process what she was saying. “ _Sometimes,”_ She started, “a little bit of pain can feel good.”

Tobin’s eyes darkened, mind running ahead of her at the visions, allowing the attorney to catch on quickly- if being insulted wasn’t Tobin’s kink, Christen might have just discovered what _was._ The athlete chose to not comment, pushing Christen’s remark to the back of her mind, thinking that if she prayed hard enough it could be something they brought up again later.

“You’re super guarded and quiet, but I’m starting to think it’s a good thing. It shows that you have patience. In yourself. In other people. You could have easily walked out on me earlier; I could tell how frustrated you were just by being here. But you didn’t. You had patience with me. So beauty, little things, and patience, that combination narrows it down to one of two things.”

“And what are those?” Christen challenged her, surprising herself at how open she suddenly was at listening to Tobin’s psychoanalysis. It had floored her, how observant the soccer player was, causing her to hang onto every word that Tobin spoke, like she was reading her own character study, or reading her own horoscope.

The waiter arrived with their second course of the night, but she’d not even looked downwards to see what it was, barely breaking her gaze from Tobin’s to thank the man as he left. And once he did, Christen was all ears once more, waiting patiently to find out where the woman was headed with all of this.

Tobin sighed, sipped her beer and swallowed it, and said- “Astronomy or Photography.”

The attorney’s head tilted even further, in disbelief at how Tobin would have narrowed it down to either of those selections.

“I would say photography...”

“But?” Christen countered softly, resting on her crossed arms on the counter, watching as Tobin gave a slight, distracted smirk. The athletes jaw clenched, and she leaned up, setting her beer onto the white cloth of the table with a soft thud. Her arms crossed, mimicking Christen’s posture, and she leaned in just barely enough to let Christen hear every syllable of her next sentence.

Brown eyes met her gaze, darkening as they watched her like a hawk, dilated pupils running back and forth between her own pair. Tobin seemed to be contemplating her next words, lips parting and closing again, the muscles in her jaw contracting as her back teeth pressed against one another.

She leaned in another half inch.

“You’re the type of woman who, in any capacity, belongs in front of a camera. Not behind one.”

Christen’s breath hitched. From the admission. From the alcohol. From Tobin’s inability to stop looking at her mouth and her nose and her chin. Tobin smiled upon hearing her breath hitch; and Christen could suddenly feel the heat burn a trail from her stomach to her core.

Perhaps womanizer wasn’t the correct word to attribute the famed athlete with, this was much worse, Tobin knew how to break and build like it was her job. She’d not remembered the last time someone told her that she was beautiful, even her ex had stopped saying it in so many words near the end of their relationship. Christen resented the butterfly’s, resented the way her mouth went dry, resented the way living alone had made her lonely enough to allow Tobin to start the tug against her barriers. Resented the way her legs tingled.

Another argument began to flair inside her sinews despite how hard she tried to stop it. Tobin’s statement had given her a bridge, a direction that she could take if she wanted to. It revealed the athlete’s true intentions without setting off alarms, without being manipulative, without making Christen feel uncomfortable.

It was the perfect orchestra, telling the attorney that she had options.

She could reprimand Tobin for her statement, remind her of her bluntness when they first met, how she told the athlete that her door was closed and locked. They would finish out this dinner and go their separate ways, maybe as strangers again, maybe as friends, but not as something more.

Or, she could take the bait. She could relax. She could feed into the sultry eyes and compliments. She could see what all the hype is about.

Christen never liked ultimatums. It was her least favorite thing to be given from a client. It backed her into a corner. It relinquished every ounce of control she had, control that she prided herself on and needed desperately in order to maintain her own wellbeing. So the attorney did what she new best, she weighed her presented options, and then decided that she would make her own.

They were still leaned against the table. Tobin waiting to hear what the woman had to say about her analysis, watching the woman calculate each syllable, each suggestive undertone, waiting to see how Christen recognized and responded to the cards Tobin had played.

“Well,” Christen started, bringing her martini up to finish it off. “I didn’t major in photography or astronomy, but I _did_ graduate from Stanford with an undergrad in Psychology. Summa Cum Laude, actually. Onto my Juris Doctor with Stanford, top of my class. Then, I passed the California _and_ Oregon Bar within the top percentile.”

Brown eyes darkened further, following Christen’s lips as she spoke, moving back to her eyes. Tobin couldn’t decide which one she wanted to look at more.

“Astronomy or photography might have been easier, but I did manage to learn a few things. Do you want to know what I learned, Tobin?”

The athlete nodded, settling on Christen’s green irises, watching as she picked up the metal toothpick that had a liquor-soaked olive pierced onto its sharp end.

“I learned that the one thing I don’t have much patience for is mind games.”

“But what if I’m not playing mind games with you?” Tobin countered, so quiet that it was almost a whisper. “What if I told you that you are more than I expected you would be?”

The war raged in her mind, Christen tried to catch every curveball Tobin threw her. “Then I would tell you the same, that you are more than I expected you to be as well. So you’re going to have to be honest with me.”

Christen looked around, noticing that there were three other couples seated around personal tables that were out of earshot from them. All were talking amongst themselves. All were preoccupied with their own lives to pay attention to their conversations. She dropped her eyes and looked up at the athlete’s face, finding herself undeniably attracted to the woman, something she couldn’t fight regardless of how badly she wanted to.

“If I told you that we had to be just friends, what would you say?”

Tobin didn’t waver, didn’t falter before answering. “That I don’t know if I would be able to do it.”

“Why?” Christen prodded.

“Because I want you too badly.”

Her eyes closed for a brief moment, finding herself selfishly agreeing with Tobin’s words.

“So you would just let me walk away?”

Tobin fought a smile. “I would respect what you wanted.”

Christen nodded, then- “If I went home with you- or took you home with me, would I ever hear from you again?”

Without hesitation, Tobin leaned in closer, whispering as if her words were a well-kept secret. “I would probably make you pancakes in the morning, if it were up to me. Unless you preferred something different.”

Her voice lowered, head dropping into Christen’s space to whisper, “And then I’d take you back to bed, because I would also have to eat.”

Christen’s eyes closed, close enough that she could smell Tobin’s cologne again, images of things that burned her alive playing out across her brain. How quickly things catch on fire.

Tobin continued her thoughts, “At some point, I would have to ask you for your phone number, so I could ask you on a proper date.”

She backed out of their space slightly, enough to look Tobin in the eyes. “And if I said that it was only a one-night thing? If I told you that I’m not in a position to be in something serious right now? Or wanted something casual?”

It was the only question that caught Tobin off-guard, and Christen thought that maybe the athlete hadn’t considered this happening. She instantly thought that this was something that didn’t happen to Tobin often, putting the dots together and realizing that the woman had likely never intimately been with a woman who didn’t want more after all was said and done- regardless of how Tobin felt about them deep down.

Tobin shook her head, a serious expression on her face. “Then I would ask you to reconsider, because that’s not what I want. And that’s not what you want, either.”

“What makes you think that I don’t want that?” Christen challenged, surprised at the statement, that Tobin would assume what she wants.

“You said so earlier, that you aren’t into casual flings or hookups. I thought we were being honest with one another, Christen?”

Another curveball. Another path she was thrown off of. Christen swallowed, eating the words that she was now remembering she’d said earlier. Tobin reached for her hand that was twirling the olive around at the bottom of her glass, allowing the first bit of genuine contact to come between them, sending sparks through both of their bodies. She picked her hand up, right hand reaching over to grab the olive, pulling it from the toothpick and then up to her mouth. The liquor that tainted the sour fruit had hit her taste buds instantly, fueling her just enough so that she could lean in towards Christen’s ear, thumb tracing patterns along Christen’s wrist that was now resting on the table.

Her lips pressed lightly against Christen’s cheek, just enough that the young attorney could barely feel it, just enough for her to feel it everywhere at the same time. “If you asked me for something casual tonight, and left this restaurant with me, I’d do everything I could to make you feel a different way once I got you home, until you couldn’t take anymore.” She heard Christen’s breath hitch, giving a short pause to make sure the woman wasn’t about to speak, before continuing. “Because I’m not sure that I’m in a position where I could have you and not keep you.”

Christen’s head dropped, swallowing Tobin’s words as she tried to stabilize her breathing, thrown off by Tobin’s insinuations and proximity. “How many women are you seeing right now?” She whispered, needing the truth, needing to know what she was getting herself into- _about_ to get herself into- what she was about to let get into her.

Tobin’s thumb stroked her wrist with more pressure, jaw clenching wildly, “Three.” She answered honestly. “But if I get to wake up next to you, if you let me take you out again, zero.”

The attorney tilted back, staying close, locking their eyes again. “Why?” She wondered, hardly knowing the woman, not wanting to trust her, in disbelief that Tobin was actually capable of doing what she was asking Christen for. “Why _me_? Instead of all those women?”

In all honesty, the athlete wasn’t entirely sure. Something had changed. Something had altered her life. Like watching a bomb explode over everything you thought you knew about yourself and the world around you, watching it alter the entirety of your future. Despite not being entirely sure, she knew it wasn’t a good enough answer to give the green-eyed beauty, knew her next words would have to be better than that- would have to make it count.

Tobin dropped her eyes to their hands, swallowing and thinking, allowing Christen to grow envious and appreciative of her full eyelashes while giving her space to think. Their eyes met again once Tobin found her answer, her solution to a question she’d never been asked before.

She leaned in again, a few centimeters between their noses, breathing steady as her thumb continued to stroke.

_“Let me take you home so I can show you.”_

All sense of confidence seemed to vanish from Christen’s body the minute Tobin opened the car door for her. It drained from her feet upon approaching Tobin’s vehicle. The jet black Audi TT RS Coupe had been parked on the street, in a parallel parking space, half a block down from the restaurant. She’d remembered walking by it after being let out by her cab driver, seeing it gleaming and polished and thinking that it was a nice car. An _impractical_ car- much different from her own, a different kind of sports car than her own, complementary to their differing lifestyles.

The custom red and black leather interior was impressive, comfortable, yet did nothing to calm her nerves once Tobin opened her driver side door and they were alone. They’d skipped over half of their dinner, Tobin paying the bill and giving an apology to the server with an excuse of a family emergency.

It was the subtle wink from the male host, _Kyle_ , as he watched them leaving early, watched Tobin open the restaurant door for her with a subtle hand on her lower back, that had set her confidence and assurance off. Now they were alone, no distractions around them, not a moment to prepare her for the things they had in mind.

Christen had not been with another woman in a very long time, and that fact was swirling loudly in her brain. The vehicle roared to life from the push to start, crashing Christen down to Earth again.

“It’s a nice car.” She nervously mumbled into the silence, once her seatbelt was buckled and Tobin was pulling out into the nighttime traffic.

The athlete smiled, glancing over to her before putting her eyes back on the road. No music was playing, the radio off, but the silence wasn’t necessarily awkward. “You think so?” Tobin quietly asked. “What do you drive?”

“BMW. M5 Sedan.”

Christen watched the shock take over her features, “Jesus, Chris. That’s like, a 100-grand vehicle.”

Christen caught onto what Tobin called her, smiling to herself. She enjoyed the way her name sounded when Tobin said it like that, shortened and sweet- like they hadn’t just met an hour ago.

“Thank you.” She couldn’t stop smiling, couldn’t stop the nervous rambling. “It was 90 thousand, actually. I talked him down about 12-grand, and my father covered half of it as a graduation present”

“Of-course you talked the price down.” Tobin chuckled playfully, expecting nothing less. “This bad boy was about 60 thousand, only a _little_ bit cheaper.”

Christen laughed quietly, shaking her head, ridding herself from the nerves at the small talk. She figured that Tobin made a much larger salary than herself, likely over a few million per year, if not more in endorsements alone. “Not like you couldn’t afford something even better than what I have if you wanted to.”

The athlete glanced at her then, judging where her head was at, trying to discern whether Christen was judging her or giving a compliment. The woman was like a puzzle, at times. A maze. Hard to read and then entirely upfront a few seconds later. Tobin enjoyed the push and pull, the knowing and not knowing all at once. Either way, she swung for a homerun.

“If you’re wondering if I could take care of you,” She quietly spoke, “I could.”

Christen’s jaw clenched. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can.” Tobin softly defended, she hadn’t meant it in that way, not intending to come across as offensive. She put her blinker on then, turning onto the block of her downtown high-rise. The attorney noticed that they were near the stadium, figuring that they were getting close to Tobin’s condo. She felt a million feelings at once-

Indescribable nervousness. Excitement. The warm feeling of her expectations of what’s to come tripled in intensity.

“I’m sorry.” Christen whispered into the silence, nails picking at the lace of her sleeve as she watched Tobin reach for a keycard that was slid into her visor. “I’m nervous.”

The soccer player smiled from the corner of her mouth, watching the gates open to allow her to enter the private parking area, nodding at the second-shift guard who sat in the booth. She took the turns of the parking deck moderately slowly, watching out for other cars, not wanting to spook Christen by taking the loop like she usually did. She figured the woman was nervous, attentive to the radio silence that had almost came over them before Christen initiated the small talk. Tobin didn’t mind it, patiently letting the car discussion play out for as long as Christen wanted it to, figuring that the woman was working through any roadblocks in her mind.

The vehicle turned into a reserved space below the top parking level, and Tobin cut the lights, allowing them to sit beneath the darkness and completely alone. She looked across the console at the raven-haired woman, weak in the chest at how beautiful she was, even in the darkness.

“We don’t have to talk about cars.” She spoke, whispering, trying to slice through the building tension by being lighthearted. Her reward came in the form of Christen giving a small smile. “What’s making you nervous?” She asked her.

Christen’s eyes fluttered, her jaw clenching, before she looked up at the athlete again. “I’m almost a month out of a three-year relationship, so it’s… been a while. Since I’ve been with someone else.”

Tobin was taken back a little by her honesty and statement, but she didn’t show it, giving Christen her full attention as the woman continued.

“She was a professional soccer player also.” Christen word-vomited, wincing when she said it, hoping that it wouldn’t terrify the athlete into running away.

“Yeah.” Tobin nodded, “Vero, right? I’d seen you tagged on her Instagram awhile back and didn’t put two and two together until earlier, so-”

“You knew that?” Christen questioned, surprised but not put off that Tobin hadn’t mentioned it earlier. She watched the athlete nod again, dark eyes locked on her features.

“Does that bother you?” The attorney questioned, curious, wondering if Tobin had any reservations about having relations with an opponent, despite Vero likely packing in LA already for her move back to Europe, making them opponents at an international level only.

Tobin shook her head and reached across the console slowly, right hand hovering in the air before her thumb touched Christen’s cheek, then moving slowly to stroke across the base of Christen’s bottom lip. The sexual tension quadrupled between them with the touch beneath the darkness, as she softly slid against the skin of Christen’s mouth, feeling the woman’s lip gloss coat the tip of her thumb.

“It’s a shame, if anything. You aren’t something worth losing.” Tobin whispered, voice coated in desire, settling in the air between them. Soothing wounds that Christen didn’t know she had. Then-

“ _But she always did hate losing to me.”_

Christen’s eyes closed, her body released from the nerves and replaced with heavy, intoxicating desire. She backed out of Tobin’s touch, left hand reaching for her clutch. “Fuck it.” She cursed, reaching for the door handle. “Let’s go.”

Tobin had her pressed against the door of her condo the second it was closed behind her, giving Christen less than a second to look through the darkness to take in the extremely modern furnishings and beautiful, artsy décor of the interiors. Her hands were pinned to the door above her as their lips met. The athlete was a phenomenal kisser, living up to her reputation as she bit, kissed, and licked her way into Christen’s mouth. It gave Christen a taste of what was coming, fueling her breathless moans when Tobin’s hips pressed into hers with rough softness.

Tobin kissed like she was searching for something. She kissed like she could get you off from it alone. Reading into the subtle turns of Christen’s face and entirely responsive to every hitch of breath and moan that she caused. Christen wanted her mouth _everywhere._ Wanted the hands and fingertips that were holding her wrists to the door to be _everywhere._ She had never been so consumed and overwhelmed at once- had never been weak in the knees so quickly.

She witnessed the athlete’s reputation take over once she got started, witnessed her expertly move in all the right ways, unleashing brute power and dripping sex in a way that had Christen panting as she was flipped against the door.

“ _Oh, God.”_

Her face pressed into the cool wood, hands still pinned up by one of Tobin’s hands, as the other deftly went to the button of her dress at the base of her neck. Two fingers unclasped her, lips following to kiss the exposed skin, as hips pressed into her ass and grinded forward, enticing a groan from the woman behind her.

“Tell me what you need.” Tobin asked of her, teeth nipping along Christen’s neck, not realizing that the woman could hardly think- _let alone_ gather the ability to speak.

She pressed her forehead into the door as a hot flash hit her skin in a cold sweat. “I _-_

“ _Come on,_ you have to tell me. _”_ Tobin urged, grinding herself into the woman again. “Be a _good girl_.”

Christen’s legs almost gave out, voice hitching at the play, exposing to the athlete one of her most solid intimate preferences.

She panted as her arms were released, feeling strong hands trail down her sides as Tobin’s mouth left wet kisses travelling down across her spine. The backless slit of her dress stopped at the base of her back, but Tobin didn’t stop there, biting into the fabric of the lace against her ass as the woman unzipped her shoes and helped her step out of them.

Once she was on even ground, Tobin flipped her back around, coming out of her kneeling position so that Christen could slide her arms around her broad shoulders and pull her back in. She craved Tobin’s mouth on hers, craved her taste, the wetness of her tongue, the feeling of their saliva exchanging.

“You won’t be able to walk tomorrow if you don’t slow me down. Is that what you want?” Tobin threatened into her mouth, giving her a warning, causing her to tremble. Christen nodded into their kiss, wrinkling the fabric of Tobin’s bomber jacket in a tight grip before pushing it roughly off her shoulders. The jacket was flung somewhere next to them and their mouths connected again.

“I want you so badly. _Please.”_ Christen was urging, tugging the athlete’s powerful body into hers, ready to give it all up- ready to-

Tobin’s mouth slowed exponentially, slowing herself down at hearing that Christen wanted her. Every inch of her skin was vibrating, needing to drown in the powerful woman, needing reassurance that Christen was here with her- ready for her.

Their tongues glided against one another with heat, Christen’s fingers beginning their work on the buttons of her shirt, moving slowly until the shirt was open and exposing her torso. Cold hands attached themselves against the rigid plane of her burning hot stomach, she heard the woman hiss upon the pads of her fingertips discovering hard muscle, nails scratching downwards across the lines of her abs.

“You are _so_ sexy.” Christen mumbled into her mouth, making her smile. “I’m _so_ into you.”

It was the confirmation Tobin needed to hear. The reassurance she was asking for before taking them further, before taking the woman down the hall to her bedroom and tearing them both along with everything she touches into pieces. Christen moved her hands from Tobin’s waist as they locked eyes, pulling her dress off of her shoulders and daring Tobin to look down as she uncovered herself. The dress slipped off her hips without a sound, and Tobin couldn’t help but allow herself a glance at the goddess before her.

And a goddess she was. The athlete could have groaned.

Christen’s braless chest heaved, nipples small and erect from the cool air blowing in her condo, toned abdomen leading downwards to black lace thong. Olive-toned and endless legs stepped towards the athlete, pressing their naked stomachs together as the situation could only intensify. Their mouths met slowly, roughly, as the attorney lifted one leg to hook around Tobin’s waistline.

“ _Take me to bed.”_ She whispered.

Tobin nodded into her mouth with her own chest heaving, hooking her hand around Christen’s other leg to pull her up into the air and into her arms, turning on an effortless dime to carry Christen down the hall.

Hands.

It’s all Christen could feel.

She was tossed onto a plush mattress, catching glimpses of a massive wooden headboard behind her and a white fluffly comforter beneath her skin. Tobin’s window that looked out onto the city was more like a wall, taking up the entirety of the space between her floor and ceiling, giving her a different vision of Portland’s skyline from what she could see out of her own home or office. She had a minute to take in her surroundings as she settled her head onto a pillow- or a pillow was placed beneath her head. She couldn’t process what happened quick enough.

Hands were everywhere. Tobin’s hands, specifically. Spreading her legs, smoothing roughly across her stomach and calves. A strong grip bearing onto her hips, holding her down into the mattress as the athlete settled jean clad thighs between her naked legs. She spread herself wider, opening up, gripping nails down onto Tobin’s opened shirt and ripping it off of her shoulders as their mouths created sparks.

Christen arched her back upon the friction between her legs, hearing Tobin pant above her, feeling Tobin’s naked torso meet her own as she was grinded into roughly. “ _Fuck, please. I-.”_ Christen begged.

The athlete’s pulled back quickly, hands moving to her jeans button. Chelsea boots were shrugged off of her feet, toes pressing into the backs of her heels until she heard the boots thud against the floor at the foot of the bed. She rid herself of her pants and socks before returning, splitting Christen’s legs back apart with her hips and pressing herself into the space between the attorney’s legs, with only the thin layer of her Calvin Klein briefs and Christen’s thong separating them.

The friction was so much for Christen, doubled by the hands that were pulling her head backwards by the roots of her hair, keeping her head held against the pillow. Her short nails tugged against the skin of Tobin’s muscular back, focusing on the rolling motion of the muscles at the athlete’s hips as she grinded into her. Tobin’s pubic bone pressed into her clit, hitting it repeatedly in a way that was almost painful, in a way that had her first orgasm approaching before she could even comprehend what hit her.

Ten seconds of grinding and her legs were locking up. “ _I’m gonna cum.”_

Tobin moaned loudly into her mouth, feeling the legs around her hips squeeze and tremble. Christen’s eyes opened as the orgasm hit her, mouth firing off a sequence of strained and light moans. Tobin had never been so turned on before, had never caused a reaction out of someone so soon. Her skin burned. Her head spun. Sweat coated her body and the back of her neck. And Christen wasn’t just another _someone_ to the athlete, so she rolled her hips harshly and slowly until the woman recovered, giving her not a moment to spare before she grasped at the ruined thong between them. Tobin realized what she wanted in that moment.

She wanted to _taste._

With permission granted through quick eye contact and a nod, the forgotten piece of cloth was ripped from the attorney’s long legs and thrown behind them. Christen didn’t know what was next. All she could feel was their sweat, the throbbing in her clit, the uncomfortable way that the air hit her drenched center as Tobin’s body removed itself from on top of her.

The athlete’s eyes were serious, focused, giving Christen the thought that she had surely flipped a switch in Tobin somewhere- a switch that now meant Tobin wasn’t fucking around anymore, was now intended on tearing Christen to shreds, was now intended on ruining her like she’d promised back at the restaurant.

_Until she couldn’t take it anymore._

_Until she couldn’t walk._

The second her skilled tongue touched Christen where she needed it most, the attorney was sure that Tobin kept good on her promises. She was spread open, as wide as Tobin could get her, enough to allow that tongue to dip into her a few times before trailing upwards and over her clit.

Christen’s head jerked back against the pillow the moment it happened, blocking out the glorious moan that fell from the athlete’s wet mouth.

She had the slightest millisecond to recover from the overwhelming and hyper-sensitive sensation when two long fingers pressed into her core. Tobin couldn’t help but grind her hips down into the bed. Christen’s taste was unbelievable, unlike anything or anyone else she’d ever tasted, making her flatten her tongue to draw as much as she could of the slickness into her mouth- over, and over, and over again. She dipped into Christen’s walls with her left hand, right hand holding Christen’s hips down onto the bed with a heavy grip, and she reached until the pads of her fingers found the spot she was searching for most.

She curled once, watching the woman’s hands grip onto the sheets so tight that she was fearing them ripping, as her mouth sucked lightly to draw the woman’s clit between her lips.

Christen hissed. Overstimulated. Feeling the ounce of pain mix with the pleasure that she had teased Tobin with back at the restaurant. Tobin gave her a second of light flicks with her tongue before burning her to the ground. Three fingers were suddenly curling against Christen’s walls, slamming into her with such force that it knocked the air from her lungs and brought her head forward with a silent gasp.

“Is that what you need?” The athlete was above her in an instant, left hand moving at a heavy and irremediable speed inside of her core, fucking her into the mattress, eyes locked passionately on her own half-opened pair. Christen felt like she was out of her body, feeling the turbulent chasm of being half inside of her skin and barely hanging onto reality simultaneously. Feeling that nothing would be quite the same after this, after she let go of what she held onto. She knew her orgasm was fast approaching, but by God did she try to fight it, fearing herself being stripped out of her body and into the void.

“ _Oh my god,”_ She scratched at Tobin’s neck, holding on for dear life, clawing at the edge of the abyss that she was being carried into.

She felt pity for every woman who had been given this and nothing else. Tobin was the kind to ruin a woman for the rest of her life, the kind that dropped bombs and injected drugs into her body that devastated her in a way that left her aching for the rest of her time on Earth.

“Please,” She begged, feeling the woman’s other hand drape over her hair at the back of her head as their noses lined up.

 _What are you begging for?_ Tobin’s eyes asked of her, sensing the vulnerability, yet not letting up by her curling fingers. A question that Christen didn’t know how to answer. She wasn’t the begging type, never had been. She didn’t want it to end yet didn’t want to let go. Didn’t want to be left with wreckage of herself. Didn’t want to experience this moment and nothing else for the rest of her life.

Tobin pulled it all out of her quickly, changing like water in order to bulldoze her way past every concrete slab of a guard that the woman had left. “Cum for me.” She ordered softly, contrasting her actions with words, making unspoken love as she fucked.

Then, “ _I’ve got you.”_ She whispered, sealing Christen’s insecurities off, acknowledging that if she would let go, Tobin would be there at the end of it all. The water at the bottom of the abyss. The hands that would pick up what shattered. A person that she could trust and hold on to without fearing the unknown.

Christen moaned once, gaze unfocused.

Then she moaned again, and Tobin watched the orgasm surface and explode beneath her eyes and around her fingers in a way that told her that Christen had just slammed back into Earth at a thousand burning miles per hour. The woman’s body locked down, and it was beautiful to her, watching death and rebirth transpire, feeling herself having never been more in tune and in sync with another human being. Tobin hoped it was good enough, she desperately wanted it to be, ready to become whatever this woman asked of her.

Trembling thighs wrapped around her waist once the contractions began to subside; and Christen had pressed her face into the skin of her neck to weave through the aftershocks, as Tobin’s fingers slowly thrusted to help her ride it out.

“I’ve got you.” She told her again. More enunciated. More sure and exact. She pulled Christen’s head back softly, letting their lips meet in a kiss that cut off oxygen, then allowing her to breathe and gasp as her fingers withdrew from warm and soaking walls that tried to keep her inside.

In the kiss, Christen reassured her of her presence, reassured her that they were still on the same page, she was present and aware and still _wanting_ and _needing_ and _open._

For a moment, they breathed together. Inhaling one another, feeling their chests heave and fight for air in perfect symbiotic motion. It was stillness and grounding, as if sunlight was peaking through the eye of the storm that just passed over them, preparing them for whatever the hell it was that waited for them on the other side.

Christen allowed her breathing to slow, allowed her soul and sanity to return beneath her skin, before the red-hot flashes of desire were forthcoming and reminding her that she needed _more_ of this with Tobin-

Whatever this was. The physical. The emotional. All of it.

She needed it all.

Sunlight streamed through the massive window on a late Saturday morning. Christen was groggy, and very naked, and exquisitely sore. She rolled over to the sound of soft humming that was pouring in from somewhere in the kitchen, painting an instant smile on her face at the familiar voice that the humming belonged to.

She stretched her legs out and then flexed them, feeling her muscles contract from the start of a new day. Outside of the satin sheets and plush white comforter, she shivered at the cool air, yet allowed her body to withstand it anyways despite how desperately she longed to stay in that bed and be comfortable. It had been a long week for the attorney, one that prepared her day by day to welcome the weekend with a smile and deep gratitude that she didn’t have to be at the office.

She could have stayed in that bed all day, but that would have been in bad taste, and Christen didn’t do much of anything in bad taste.

A shirt was on the foot of the bed, her underwear a few feet away from it. She slipped the shirt on without caring who’s it was and left the underwear to be deal with later. Everything could be dealt with later. She was smiling. She was energized. She was happy.

In the kitchen, her feet met a cold hardwood floor, and it put goosebumps on her thighs until she was pressed into the strong backside of a personified heater.

 _Her_ personified heater.

“Good morning.” She mumbled into a shoulder, eyes still sleepy and soft smile still wide as her arms reached around an even warmer midsection. She smelled light fabric softener and coffee, and a hint of cologne.

She smelled pancakes.

Tobin stopped what she was doing on the stovetop and turned her head to the side with a low giggle, kissing soft skin of a forehead as her nose nuzzled dark and familiar curls.

“Good morning, _wife.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed, send a kudos and a comment! You can also subscribe or bookmark the Collections Series if you wanted updates on the updates. And you can find me on Tumblr at https://quintessentialdreams.tumblr.com/
> 
> Practice good social distancing!


End file.
